Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

CORNWALL COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords](By Order)

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords] (By Order)

SHREWSBURY AND ATCHAM BOROUGH COUNCIL BILL [Lords] (By Order)

BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL (By Order)

COMMONS REGISTRATION (GLAMORGAN) BILL (By Order)

Orders for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Thursday 17 February.

GINNS AND GUTTERIDGE LEICESTER (CREMATORIUM) BILL (BY ORDER)

Order for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Monday 14 February at Seven o'clock.

TEES AND HARTLEPOOL PORT AUTHORITY BILL (By Order)

Order for Second reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Thursday 17 February.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN IRELAND

United Kingdom Links

Mr. Marlow: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will introduce measures to strengthen the links between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. James Prior): As a constituent part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland's links with Great Britain are already strong and close.

Mr. Marlow: In view of the massive effort that the United Kingdom made to secure the position of fewer than 2,000 British citizens some 8,000 miles away, is not anyone who still believes in a united Ireland living in a

dream world, the only outcome of which can be tragedy and nightmare? Will my right hon. Friend advise such people that the best thing that they can dc in the circumstances is to make the best of the fact that Northern Ireland is and will remain part of the United Kingdom indefinitely?

Mr. Canavan: The hon. Gentleman is helping the terrorists.

Mr. Prior: I cannot stop anyone living in a dream world, but all the people of Northern Ireland would do best to take part in the constitutional government of Northern Ireland.

Constitutional Developments

Mr. Arnold: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether he will make a statement about constitutional developments in Northern Ireland.

Mr. McCusker: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on progress to date towards the development of cross-community support in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Mr. Canavan: asked the Secretary of St ate for Northern Ireland whether he is satisfied with the working of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Mr. Stanbrook: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the progress of constitutional reform in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Prior: The Northern Ireland Assembly resumed its work after the Christmas Recess on 25 January. As envisaged, a good deal of business is being handled by the six statutory committees corresponding to the Northern Ireland Departments. I welcome the fact that all the parties attending the Assembly are participating in the work of these committees. It remains a matter of regret that the SDLP has not taken its seats. I believe that Northern Ireland's interests would be best served if the elected representatives of all the constitutional parties were to seek agreement on devolution in the Assembly.

Mr. Arnold: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the internal procedures of the Assembly are not a matter for the British Government and that he will not intervene in disputes between Members of the Assembly and the Speaker?

Mr. Prior: I can confirm both parts of my hon. Friend's supplementary question. It would be much in the interests of the Assembly if we allowed it to get on with its work.

Mr. Canavan: When will the Secretary of State admit that his Northern Ireland Assembly is an absolute farce because of its inbuilt Unionist majority, which resulted from the gerrymandered division of Ireland more than half a century ago? When will he admit that the only constitutional change that will bring lasting stability to the people of Ireland is the peaceful reunification of Ireland, which is now the official policy of the Labour party?

Mr. Prior: If the hon. Gentleman believes that that will happen tomorrow, he has a lot to learn about the state of opinion in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Stanbrook: As, by any standards, Northern Ireland needs a period of constitutional peace and


continuity, will my right hon. Friend refrain from encouraging the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic to propose any fresh initiative that might carry the majority of people in Northern Ireland along a road that they do not wish to travel?

Mr. Prior: It is not for me to restrain the Taoiseach from having views of his own. I am strongly concerned with the future constitutional position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. I hope that all hon. Members will give me what assistance they can to help with that development.

Mr. Flannery: Does the Secretary of State agree that Northern Ireland needs not just constitutional peace but peace, and that the present situation is not conducive to that? How is the Northern Ireland Assembly progressing, since the minority community is not represented because its representatives are not attending the Assembly? Will he make a statement about that, as it is the crux of the matter?

Mr. Prior: The answer to that, with deep regret, is that one of the minority parties is not attending the Assembly. The Alliance party, however, which has a number of Catholics, is attending the Assembly and is playing a full part in it. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will use his influence to help the SDLP to play a full part, too.

Mr. Peter Robinson: Will the Secretary of State take it from me that, far from being a farce, the Northern Ireland Assembly is already getting down to useful work? Does he appreciate that there is more time in the Assembly than in this House to concentrate on examining Government legislation and proposing changes to it, and that Assembly Members have already seen some fruit from their labours?

Mr. Skinner: Another gravy train.

Mr. Prior: There is much in what the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) says. I believe that the Assembly, even in its present form, is performing a task which the people of Northern Ireland wish to see carried out. The more that it gets on with that task, the better.

Mr. Fitt: Does the Secretary of State agree that after nearly 14 years of murder and carnage the possibility of peaceful reunification suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) does not exist at the present time? Does he further agree that, irrespective of what may be said in Dublin, in this House, in Washington or in the European Community, the only people who can resolve the differences that now divide Northern Ireland are the Protestant and Catholic communities of the north, that that must be the starting point and that every effort should be geared to that?

Mr. Prior: I endorse all that the hon. Gentleman said. I urge hon. Members in all parts of the House to appreciate the difficulty of the problem and the necessity to seek a solution in the context of the two traditions of Northern Ireland.

Mr. Concannon: Will the Secretary of State take it from me, as one who has tried to be helpful on this and who has spoken to members of the SDLP, that, sadly, there is no possibility of the SDLP taking part in the Assembly, at any rate before the next general election? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if he wishes to take

the minority community with him he must take its views into account when considering what is said in the Assembly about cross-community support?

Mr. Prior: I am aware that I must take the views of the SDLP into account, and that factor would always be before this House if any proposals for devolution were put before us. In the meantime, I shall try to give the SDLP as much access as possible to government and to what is happening.

Belfast City Hospital

Rev. Martin Smyth: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement about the new Belfast city hospital block and the implications for future financing of the hospital services in Northern Ireland.

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. John Patten): Allowing time for its commission, the new Belfast city hospital will come into use in the summer of 1985 at a total estimated capital cost, including equipment and fees, of £62·5 million at December 1982 prices. It will provide greatly enhanced inpatient and outpatient facilities for the Greater Belfast area as well as some specialised regional services.
The net additional running costs will be met by the Eastern board from a combination of additional moneys allocated specifically for the purpose and savings to be found by the board from greater efficiency in the use of present resources, including a further rationalisation of acute hospital services in the area.

Rev. Martin Smyth: I welcome that statement, but is the Minister aware of suggestions that it is more economical to delay completion of the project than to try to operate it as a viable economic unit?

Mr. Patten: I am aware of those suggestions and I should be the first to admit that the saga of the Belfast city hospital has not been entirely happy. We believe, however, that it would be a great mistake to mothball such a splendid new building, which will provide first-class additional facilities for the whole Province and especially for the hon. Gentleman's constituency.

Dr. Mawhinney: How many extra staff will be employed as a consequence of opening the new block?

Mr. Patten: There will be a level transfer of staff from the present Belfast city hospital to the new tower block, although there may be changes in numbers above and below establishment in certain nursing specialties.

Mr. Molyneaux: Will the Minister give an assurance that the escalating costs of the hospital will in no way reduce financial allocations to the Northern board which would prevent work proceeding on the new hospital in Antrim?

Mr. Patten: We shall be making about £2 million extra available to the Eastern board to help run the Belfast hospital when it is completed and when it is open in 1985. I am well aware of the hon. Gentleman's concern that the proposed Antrim hospital should begin as soon as possible. We hope that it will begin as soon as possible after 1984–85. We have certainly learnt from some of the unfortunate experiences surrounding the building of the tower block in Belfast and we hope that the Antrim project will not suffer from the same problems.

Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights

Mr. Dubs: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he is satisfied with the powers and responsibilities of the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights.

Mr. John Patten: I believe that it is right that the commission's statutory remit should concentrate on political and religious discrimination, but my my right hon. Friend is aware of the commission's concern about its functions and he will be writing to the chairman shortly on that subject.

Mr. Dubs: Does the Minister agree that it would be desirable to widen the remit and powers of the commission and, in particular, to allow it to investigate subjects of its own choosing, an example of considerable concern being the delay in coroners' reports coming forward on the deaths of children as a result of the use of plastic baton rounds?

Mr. Patten: My right hon. Friend is well aware of the concern already expressed by the commission to have its remit extended beyond straightforward political and religious issues. From time to timeprevious Secretaries of State have referred certain issues to the commission for consultation and my right hon. Friend is certainly not disbarred from referring specific items to it at some future time. He is at present considering the general request and will shortly be writing to the commission and answering exactly the questions that the hon. Gentleman raises.

Mr. Soley: Does the Minister accept that it is important to increase the investigatory powers which the commission needs to carry out its job effectively, otherwise allegations about organisations and institutions in Northern Ireland will be made, fairly or unfairly, and will never be answered to the satisfaction of the minority community? Does the Minister agree that the investigatory powers of the standing commission are extremely important in that respect?

Mr. Patten: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is not only the problems of the minority community, but sometimes also those of the majority community, that need to be examined. That having been said, however, the commission is not the only organisation concerned with human rights in the Province. There is also the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Fair Employment Agency. We believe that between the three of them they do an excellent job.

Kinsale Gas Link

Mr. Stallard: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether he will make a statement on the progress of the negotiations on the Kinsale gas link.

The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Adam Butler): Negotiations at ministerial level are proceeding between the United Kingdom and Irish Governments about the terms on which natural gas might be made available to Northern Ireland from the Kinsale field. Those negotiations are being pressed forward urgently with a view to reaching an early conclusion, one way or the other.

Mr. Stallard: Is the Minister aware that his reference to urgency will be welcomed by people on both sides of

the border in Ireland? In view of the extreme importance of this project to the people of the six counties of the northeast, however, will he tell us more about the funding of the project and when he expects to announce a date for the gas to become available?

Mr. Butler: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The uncertainty must be removed as soon as possible. That is why I am working towards a decision in the near future. The total capital cost is likely to be about £150 million. It is difficult to say when the gas will actually be available to consumers, as that depends on the timing of decisions, but it will probably be about two years after the decision date.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Has the Minister a recent estimate of the comparative cost of this project and the project of bringing North sea gas from Great Britain to the Province?

Mr. Butler: I can certainly supply the figures to the right hon. Gentleman, but this was looked at carefully some little while ago. The capital cost of bringing gas, probably from Scotland, made the likelihood of the project's viability extremely doubtful. He must recognise that the costs which have to be compared are those of bringing gas from Dublin to the border and the relatively long under-sea crossing from the mainland.

Mr. Peter Robinson: Did the Government's consideration of this project have more to do with cross-border relationships than energy or economic advantage? Would it not be to the Province's energy and economic advantage if the Government gave greater consideration to the coal industry?

Mr. Butler: Of course the project has cross-border implications, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that these are almost entirely commercial. It would be foolish to deny that there are any political overtones, but, equally, I confirm that the project will not go ahead unless it makes commercial sense.

Mr. Concannon: I always believed and understood that there was spare energy capacity in Northern Ireland and would be for some considerable time. Is it not a fact that if a new source of energy is brought into Northern Ireland it can only be at the expense of the forms of energy that are already there, which are already subsidised by the Government?

Mr. Butler: It is correct that there is today overcapacity in electricity generation, but we are talking about a project which would have a minimum 20-year life. The Government's point of view is that, all things being equal, it is right that the people of Northern Ireland should have the same choice of fuels as others have in the United Kingdom. At the moment they are denied natural gas at reasonable prices.

Economic Prospects

Dr. Mawhinney: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the Northern Ireland economy.

Mr. Prior: As in the rest of the United Kingdom, the effects of recession have continued to be felt in Northern Ireland during the past year.
It is my particular concern to see that Northern Ireland can benefit from an upturn in economic activity. To this


end, the new industrial development board and the local enterprise development unit are vigorously pursuing a policy of encouraging new investment and new employment opportunities, while giving all the help and advice necessary to preserve existing viable jobs. This is coupled with steps to ensure that the labour force is well trained. Prospects for new investment would be greatly enhanced by a return to more settled political conditions.

Dr. Mawhinney: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Does he agree that gunmen in the Province are killing off jobs just as surely as they are killing people? Does he agree also that political intransigence in the Province will effectively discourage the private sector from seeking to move in to replace jobs that have been lost?

Mr. Prior: Yes, Sir. Nothing is more damaging to the Province than its reputation for violence. That is why it is vital that we do all we can to win the battle against the gunmen and restore political stability.

Mr. Molyneaux: Is the Secretary of State in a position to make a progress report on the negotiations with the Michelin tyre company on continued production at Mallusk and Ballymena?

Mr. Prior: No, Sir. I have nothing to add to what I said at the meeting I had with the hon. Gentleman and some of his honourable colleagues a little while ago. I recognise the great anxiety in Northern Ireland about this project. I recognise also the considerable contribution that the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members have sought to make in helping with this difficult matter. The difficulty is basically one of surplus car and tyre production throughout the United Kingdom and Western Europe.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Does the Minister agree that if some Northern Ireland politicians, including some in the House, spent more time discussing unemployment in the Northern Ireland economy and made fewer sectarian speeches, which frighten off foreign investors, the Northern Ireland economy might be in a better state?

Mr. Prior: I share some of the feelings behind the hon. Gentleman's remarks. However, I do not want to add fuel to the fire. To do so would not do any good.

Mr. Robert Atkins: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there are some good signs in Northern Ireland, particularly at Short Brothers, which is taking on new men. Does the success of the 330, the 360 and even the Sherpa in world markets prove that a company such as Short Brothers can do well and work with high technology, which can be successful?

Mr. Prior: Yes, Sir. Short Brothers is the jewel in the crown at the moment. One must remember that, despite all the troubles in Northern Ireland, the quality of its labour force and the lack of industrial strife are important points in Northern Ireland's favour which are not generally recognised in the rest of the United Kingdom and beyond.

Mr. Soley: Has the Secretary of State given careful consideration to the report issued last week by the Northern Ireland trade unions? Will he pay particular attention to their recommendations on employment grants and on support to the indigenous industries and the house building project?

Mr. Prior: Of course I shall give careful consideration to this report, although I have only just received it. It

involves a considerable increase in public expenditure over and above the increases that have already been allocated to Northern Ireland during the past two years and over and above the considerable extra public expenditure already available to the people of Northern Ireland compared with any other part of the United Kingdom. One must bear all those points in mind, but I welcome any help towards improving the economic position in Northern Ireland.

Security

Mr. Farr: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the current security situation in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Prior: Since I last answered questions on 23 December eight people have died in incidents arising from the security situation in the Province.
On 6 January two policemen were shot dead and another was seriously injured in Rostrevor, Co. Down, while on 18 January a part-time member of the RUC reserve was murdered in front of his wife in Londonderry. The House will be aware that on 16 January Judge William Doyle was shot dead as he left a church in South Belfast; an elderly lady was injured in the same attack. The Provisional IRA has claimed responsibility for all these brutal crimes.
Of the four others who died, two were shot dead by the security forces following armed robberies in Belfast on 27 December and 19 January. Two accomplices were arrested after the latter incident. The body of a murdered man was found in Belfast on 8 January. Finally, on 2 February, a man was killed and another wounded during a struggle with a soldier in Londonderry. A pistol and an M1 carbine were later found in the vicinity.
I can assure the House that the security forces remain vigilant and determined to carry out their duties on behalf of all the people of the Province.
So far this year 68 persons have been charged with terrorist type offences, including four with murder and four with attempted murder. 31 weapons, 19,938 rounds of ammunition together with 146 lbs of explosives have been recovered.

Mr. Farr: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Is he aware that the thanks of the House go out to those security forces who are doing such a splendid job in difficult circumstances? Can he assure the House that cross-border co-operation with the Republic is continuing? Can he comment on last night's stealing of Shergar and the fact that it is reported that the horse is in Northern Ireland and has been abducted by the Provisional IRA?

Mr. Prior: It is still too early to say what lies behind the kidnapping of Shergar, but I understand that the Republic's police have not yet ruled out terrorist involvement. It has been discovered that the horse-box that was used was stolen from South Armagh, so it is possible that the horse is in Northern Ireland. Neither I nor anyone else knows at this stage. We are satisfied that cross-border security co-operation is continuing at a high level.
I am of course grateful, and I join my hon. Friend, as I am sure the House does, in what he has said about the security forces.

Mr. William Ross: We all rejoice in Northern Ireland at the increasing strength of the RUC. However, how


many of the extra men who have been recruited over the past few years are now carrying out duties formerly performed by Army personnel?

Mr. Prior: I cannot give the exact details of strength requested by the hon. Gentleman. I am not certain that it would be in the interests of the security operation to do so. It is part of the Government's policy that, as the strength of the police force increases, that of the Army should be reduced wherever possible. That is absolutely right both for Northern Ireland and for the Army.

Mr. Stephen Ross: In view of the ghastly murder of Judge Doyle, should not those who administer justice in Northern Ireland be given protection if they so require? Is it not vital that, even if they request not to be given that protection, it should be given anyway?

Mr. Prior: I urge all those who are offered protection and who are considered to be risks to accept that protection. They have a duty to society to put up with that protection, however onerous it may be from time to time. The RUC is available to give advice to anyone who believes that he requires it.

Mr. Wilkinson: Will my right hon. Friend enlighten the House on the personal background of the two who were involved in the clash with the Army in Londonderry on 2 February, one of whom was killed and the other of whom was wounded? Is there any sign of progress in getting extradition of wanted criminals from the Republic of Ireland to stand trial in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Prior: I again drew the latter point to the attention of the Government of the Republic when the Foreign Minister came to see me the other day. It was claimed that one of the two shot in Londonderry a little while ago was a member of the INLA on active service. I have no further information that I can give to the House, but a report is being prepared and will be considered in due course both by the RUC and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Mr. Fitt: Has it been drawn to the Secretary of State's attention that in the week following the brutal murder of Judge William Doyle it was reported in the Republican newspaper The Republican News, that the IRA claimed responsibility and boasted how its men were dressed in the appropriate gear to go to that chapel in a middle class area and carry out that atrocious murder? Has it been drawn to the Secretary of State's attention that since then, on television, one of the IRA's spokesmen who was elected to Stormont in the recent Assembly elections said that Judge William Doyle was a legitimate target on the ground that he supported the police, the UDR, the Army and the judicial system? If we are to follow that line of reasoning, the majority community and a large section of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland will fear that they are legitimate targets.

Mr. Prior: That illustrates the problem in Northern Ireland of dealing with a small number of terrorists who are out to murder. Reports reached me that after the murder of Judge Doyle there were celebration parties in parts of west Belfast that night. How can one have anything more barbaric and disgraceful than that?

Mr. Peter Robinson: Does the Secretary of State accept that there is still widespread dissatisfaction with his security policy for Northern Ireland? Is he aware that that widespread dissatisfaction has reached such a level that the

Police Federation of Northern Ireland is examining whether to put a case before the European Court of Human Rights against the policy because it is endangering; the lives of its members?

Mr. Prior: That has not been drawn to my attention. I hope that the Police Federation will consider its attitude carefully before it takes such action, because I do not believe that that would be consistent with loyalty to the police force, to the Government, or to the task that it is asked to perform. However, no one will be satisfied with security in Northern Ireland until all terrorism has ended. We shall continue every effort to reach that conclusion.

Mr. Concannon: Is the Secretary of State aware that the Opposition deplore deaths in Northern Ireland, however they happen? They are a sheer waste of human life and are unnecessary. Will the Secretary of State give us the figures for the use of baton rounds in the past week or month? Is their use under political control? Is their lack of use due to political intervention or to the fact that, purely and simply, there have not been riots on the streets of Belfast or Londonderry—riots that have much more sinister connotations than riots in the rest of the United Kingdom? If there are no riots, the baton rounds do not have to be used.

Mr. Prior: If there are no riots there is no need to use baton rounds. However, one must remember that in the Northern Ireland context rioting is often used as a means of protecting men who are armed and shooting at the security forces. Therefore, the problem in Northern Ireland is different from those in the rest of the United Kingdom. So far we have not found a suitable alternative to the plastic baton round, but I repeat that if there are no riots, there is no need for baton rounds. In fact, since 1 September last year, in other words for over four and a half months, only 19 baton rounds have been fired. I think that I am right in saying that only one has been fired since the beginning of this year.

Unmployment Statistics

Mr. Parry: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the latest unemployment figures for Northern Ireland.

Mr. Adam Butler: At 13 January 1983 there were 116,200 persons unemployed in Northern Ireland. The rate of unemployment was 20·8 per cent. A breakdown of these figures demonstrates the particularly severe level of unemployment in certain areas of the Province. The Government are persevering with their industrial development drive in the face of a continuing worldwide recession and with their comprehensive range of special measures to provide training for young people and to alleviate unemployment in the shorter term.

Mr. Parry: Are not those figures disgraceful, as are the figures for the rest of the United Kingdom? Recently the Home Secretary accepted in the House that there was a link between rising crime and high unemployment. Does not that also apply to the Province, particularly to young people? What positive steps do the Government intend to take to reduce unemployment, instead of making sympathetic statements and excuses?

Mr. Butler: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that level of unemployment is far too high. The Government


are taking, and have been taking for some months, a number of steps to help. I have outlined those steps to the House in the past. The hon. Gentleman referred to the link between criminal activity and unemployment. We agree with him, in the context of the Province. Already this afternoon my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has illustrated the important link between overcoming terrorism, political stability and the level of unemployment.

Mr. Molyneaux: Does the Minister recall the letter sent to all Members of Parliament by the Secretary of State for Employment, the compliment slip attached to which said:
For information only. The scheme does not apply to Northern Ireland.
Will the Minister ensure that parallel schemes exist in Northern Ireland? I refer to the community programme.

Mr. Butler: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman told me what the scheme was at the end of his question. The community programme equivalent has been operating with the greatest success in Northern Ireland. It is called "Action for Community Employment". The terms are slightly different, but essentially the scheme is the same. Only recently the number of places on it has been expanded from 1,200 full-time places to 3,500 full-time and part-time places.

Mr. McNamara: Will the Minister tell us whether it is intended to increase employment in Northern Ireland by increasing the number of judges so that at least one might be released to look into the workings of the emergency provisons legislation? Or is it impossible for the Government to find a judicial person of sufficient seniority to look into the workings of that Act, either because they dislike the whole status of the Act, or because they might be persuaded to extend its provisions to the whole of the United Kingdom—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This question is on unemployemt in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Soley: Do not the figures show the wisdom of the proposals put to the Minister by the trade unions in Northern Ireland? To dismiss them as an increase in public expenditure, as the Secretary of State did, is totally unacceptable, when everyone knows that one reason why the Government cannot get public expenditure down is the consequence of mass unemployment?

Mr. Butler: My right hon. Friend has not turned down the report out of hand. He said that he had only just received it. He properly draws attention to the fact that the Northern Ireland committee of the Irish congress of trade unions is calling for additional public expenditure. That itself has its consequences on interest rates, probably on inflation, and therefore ultimately on unemployment. That runs contrary to the policy that the Government are pursuing.

Overseas Companies

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the number of overseas companies that have set up in business in the Province during the past three years.

Mr. Adam Butler: During the three years ending December 1982, 10 overseas companies have established plants in Northern Ireland.

Mr. McNair-Wilson: Has my hon. Friend been able to assess the cost of attracting those jobs to the Province? Is he satisfied that the financial benefits available to would-be investors in Northern Ireland are at least on a par with what is available south of the border?

Mr. Butler: We believe that the package of Government incentives available in Northern Ireland, taken overall, is as good as what is on offer in the south. However, some features of the package from the Republic seem to be more attractive to would-be investors, and we are looking into that matter. I come back to one fundamental point: what is most off-putting to would-be investors in the Province is the image that they have of security and the political situation.

Mr. Concannon: How many new jobs from overseas came to Northern Ireland last year?

Mr. Butler: The figure for last year was very small indeed, reflecting the fact that in North America, as in Europe, the recession has virtually cut off all investment intentions. Perhaps I may tell the hon. Gentleman that in 1982 the number of jobs promoted, at 5,600, was greater than, or at least equal to, the number of jobs promoted in 1975, 1976 and 1977.

National Type Approval

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when he expects to lay a draft order extending the national type approval scheme to Ulster.

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. David Mitchell): I plan to publish a proposal for public consultation later this year. The draft order would then be laid as quickly as possible after the six-week consultation period.

Mr. Powell: Is the Minister aware of the anxiety with which this legislation is awaited by the motor trade in Northern Ireland, which believes that it would do much to relieve it from the threat of unfair importation? Will the Minister endeavour to cut down the causes of delay which are still preventing him from forecasting an early date for the presentation of the proposals?

Mr. Mitchell: We shall proceed as quickly as possible with the preparation of the draft order. The purpose of this order is not in any way to be a restraint on trade. It is not designed to block out imports. It is designed merely to ensure that the imports that come into the country comply with the proper regulations.

Gaelic Athletic Association

Mr. Peter Robinson: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much has been paid to the Gaelic Athletic Association in each of the past three years.

The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Nicholas Scott): The Sports Council for Northern Ireland has made grants of £13,000, £9,000 and £6,000 to the Gaelic Athletic Association over the past three years.

Mr. Robinson: In view of the fact that, overall, about £6,000 has been given to the GAA, a body that discriminates against the security forces, will the Minister say what legal or moral justification there can be for giving money to such a body?

Mr. Scott: Grants to voluntary sporting bodies in Northern Ireland with an open membership run at 50 per cent. of approved costs. For those that restrict their membership in any way it is 33⅓ per cent., and that covers the GAA.

Mr. Fitt: Does the Minister accept that the Gaelic Athletic Association is representative of the minority community in Northern Ireland? If the Government can see fit to give money—and a lot of money—to the Linfield football club for it to build a new stand, is it not just as well that they should give money to the other side?

Mr. Scott: Perhaps I should make it clear in the first place that no money has gone to the Linfield football club to build a new stand. Secondly, I recognise, of course, the role of the GAA in supplying sport for the minority tradition. On the other hand, I still find repugnant rule 15 of that association.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER

Engagements

Mr. Skinner: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 10 February.

The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today. This evening I shall be attending a reception at Buckingham Palace for the Queen's Awards to Industry.

Mr. Skinner: What does the Prime Minister say to people who have been made redundant, such as, for example, one of my constituents, who wrote to me yesterday saying that he had gone to the bank for a loan to set up a small business—he had been redundant for two and a half years—and he was shown the door by the bank manager? How is it that at the same time Argentina can apply for three loans from the British Government and British banks, complete with tax relief on the Prime Minister's approval—a medium-term loan, a bridging loan, and an International Monetary Fund loan? Does that not show the utter hypocrisy of this Government? Is it not an indictment of this Tory "Yosser-land" Britain?

The Prime Minister: I do not know the precise circumstances in which the hon. Gentlemans's constituent asked for a loan, and of course one would need to know those circumstances. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will write to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry. There is a loans guarantee scheme for small manufacturing business. That scheme was brought in by this Government, and it aids many people who want to start up on their own. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will pursue the matter with my right hon. Friend.
The loans for Argentina were arranged in conjunction with the agreement with the IMF, which enables Argentina to repay her previous debts and also to put her economy on a sound industrial basis. One does not need much imagination to realise that the alternative would be for Argentina to default. If Argentina did that, and her past debts were wiped out, having a present balance of payments, she would have far more liquid cash to buy armaments under those circumstances than if she paid her former debts.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Will the Prime Minister clear up a confusion? She said on Tuesday that the only route out of unemployment was to get our inflation down to, or below, the level of Germany, among other countries. She also said that German unemployment was now increasing faster than ours. How does she reconcile those two statements?

The Prime Minister: If the right hon. Gentleman thinks a little further he will realise that if we are to have more jobs and compete in the wider world we musk be able to compete with efficient industries. There are efficient industries in Britain and in Germany and ours will be the more able to compete when our level of inflation is down to theirs and lower. There is no difficulty, except in the right hon. Gentleman's mind.

Sir William Clark: As, last year, we enjoyed a balance of payments surplus of £4,500 million, of which £2,000 million was in manufactured goods, does my right hon. Friend agree that in many parts of the economy we are extremely competitive and that British exporters should be congratulated on their achievements in a world recession? Is that not further proof that the Government's economic strategy is being rewarded?

The Prime Minister: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The balance of payments surplus was excellent last year and was £1 billion higher than forecast. Quite apart from oil, the volume of manufactured exports held up well despite a declining world trade. The performance of manufactured exports was very good indeed.

Mr. Foot: May I ask the right hon. Lady about her talks with Vice-President Bush? Labour Members are strongly opposed to the deployment of SS20s and to the deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles in western Europe. We would be eager, as we have mentioned before, to have a debate on the subject. Did the right hon. Lady discuss with the Vice-President any possibility other than the zero option as defined by him? Is she aware that there ate other proposals from the other side of the Atlantic which might have a better chance of bringing about successful negotiations? Did the right hon. Lady reopen the question of the dual key and seek to rectify the agreement that her Government apparently made on this subject in December 1979?

The Prime Minister: I note that the right hon. Gentleman is against the deployment of SS20s, but the fact is that they are deployed, have been deployed for six years, and that deployment has increased over that period. If they are taken down there will be no need to deploy cruise and Pershing missiles. Therefore, I take it that the right hon. Gentleman's first objective is the zero option, which was approved by President Reagan, because that is the way to prevent the deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles.
The Vice-President made it perfectly clear in his speech, and in conversations and speeches elsewhere, that the zero option is not a take-it-or-leave-it option. It is, of course, our goal and we must keep to that goal, because undoubtedly it would be the best possible result for those who believe in safeguarding our way of life, but who, at the same time, want to reduce the amount spent on nuclear and other weapons. Therefore, there are other possibilities as well as the zero option.
With regard to the dual key, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the present arrangement is for a joint decision, and that means exactly what it says.

Mr. Foot: Did the right hon. Lady discuss with the Vice-President the proposals that have been made by Mr. Paul Warnke, the previous negotiator on behalf of the United States at the SALT 2 talks—proposals that many would think had a better chance of resulting in negotiations? Did she discuss that at all, because that would be a real alternative, a real flexible response?
Will the right hon. Lady confirm the reply that the Foreign Secretary gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) in December when he asked the Foreign Secretary to assure the House that if the missiles were ever placed in Great Britain they would be subject to the same dual control arrangements of earlier American nuclear weapons based in Great Britain? At that time the Foreign Secretary said that he could not give that assurance. Is that the same situation now, and, if so, does it mean that once again the right hon. Lady has not properly sought a new arrangement to deal with these missiles?

The Prime Minister: Missiles must be stationed somewhere and the arrangements that we have are those that were approved in the days of Attlee, Truman and Churchill. They are the arrangements that have been agreed by all Governments, which have been honoured and which are identical to a joint decision.

Mr. Foot: Does the right hon. Lady's reply mean that she is confirming the answer that the Foreign Secretary gave on this matter just before Christmas?

The Prime Minister: No. My reply means what I said—that the present arrangements are for joint decision on the use of American bases, which were started in the days of Attlee, Truman and Churchill.

Falkland Islands

Mr. Bidwell: asked the Prime Minister whether she has any plans to re-visit the Falkland Islands.

The Prime Minister: I have no present plans to do so.

Mr. Bidwell: Has the right hon. Lady seen the recent Gallup poll in The Daily Telegraph, which shows that two thirds of those questioned were extremely sceptical about the costly "Fortress Falklands" policy? Why did the Government turn down Lord Shackleton's proposal to distribute absentee owners' land to the islanders if they still believe in a property-owning democracy?

The Prime Minister: The policy of putting large defence garrisons in the Falkland Islands has been forced upon us by Argentina. At present there is no alternative if we are properly to defend the rights of the Falkland Islanders to remain British under British sovereignty and administration. It has always been the view of the vast majority of hon. Members that the Falkland Islanders' wishes should be paramount.
We, and I think most of the Falkland Islanders, do not think that it is right for Governments to purchase all of the land in the Falkland Islands. There are alternative ways in which it should be possible to achieve sales of land to some of the Falkland Islanders who wish to purchase it from some of the companies.

Engagements

Mr. Pawsey: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 10 February.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Pawsey: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many people are becoming gravely concerned about the level of violent crime, particularly that of murder? Therefore, will my right hon. Friend confirm to the House that in a new Parliament, in which she is Prime Minister, Government time will be given for a debate on the reintroduction of capital punishment, and will she allow a free vote afterwards?

The Prime Minister: We are all gravely concerned about increasing crime, which is one of the reasons why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has put at the top of his priorities the need to increase the number of police, because the greatest deterrent to crime is the certainty of detection. The Criminal Justice Act 1982 strengthened the powers of the courts and provided an opportunity—the second in this Parliament—for a debate on capital punishment. I have no doubt at all that there will be another such opportunity in another Parliament. Of course, there is plenty of time remaining in this Parliament for private Members to raise the subject. I have no doubt that it will be raised again in the next Parliament and it is customary on such occasions to have a free vote.

Mr. Conlan: In view of the regrettable decision by the Home Office to place a contract for a communications antenna with America, will the Prime Minister consider today why that folly is about to be compounded by the Ministry of Defence in placing a further contract for antennae with the Americans for RAF Oakhanger, which is worth three times as much as that placed by the Home Office?

The Prime Minister: I am not at all certain of the details of this, whether it comes under NATO arrangements or elsewhere. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has placed contracts with America, it will have been done after careful consideration and only on the basis that it can fulfil the precise requirements at a competitive price.

Unemployment Statistics

Mr. Peter Bottomley: asked the Prime Minister what is the latest available information on the rates of unemployment for single men, and married men with (a) no dependent children, (b) one child, (c) two children and (d) three children.

The Prime Minister: The latest information comes from the 1981 labour force survey. About one in six single men was unemployed. The rate for married men with two or fewer dependent children was one in 16 compared with about one in nine for men with three or more dependent children.

Mr. Bottomley: Recognising, perhaps, the different age groups of people without children, does my right hon. Friend accept that the relatively low level of child benefit now compared with 25 years ago may be a partial explanation of the higher unemployment figures for people with more children? Does she recognise that increasing child benefit is a more cost-effective way of helping families with children than raising the married man's tax allowance or giving pay increases at work? If my right hon. Friend has any hang-up about increasing child


benefit, will she share it with the House so that people such as myself can help to convince her that an increase in child benefit is highly desirable?

The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend knows, in November 1980 the Government gave an undertaking to

maintain the November 1980 value of child benefit. That undertaking has been honoured. I know my hon. Friend's strength of feeling on this matter. He knows that these matters are dealt with in the Budget. I should also point out that increasing the thresholds is very important as well.

Business of the House

Mr. Michael Foot: Will the Leader of the House state the business for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen: Yes, Sir.
The Business for next week will be as follows:—
MONDAY 14 FEBRUARY—Until seven o'clock, consideration of private Members' motions.
At seven o'clock the Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration.
Second Reading of the Miscellaneous Financial Provisions Bill.
TUESDAY 15 FEBRUARY—Motion relating to the Statement of changes in Immigration Rules.
Motion relating to the Education (Special Educational Needs) Regulations.
WEDNESDAY 16 FEBRUARY—Consideration of timetable motions on the Telecommunications Bill and the Housing Building Control Bill.
Motion on the Parliamentary Constituencies (Wales) Order.
Motion on European Community Document 10390/82 on imported skins of certain seal pups.
THURSDAY 17 FEBRUARY—Second Reading of the Health and Social Services and Social Security Adjudications Bill (Lords).
FRIDAY 18 FEBRUARY—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY 21 FEBRUARY—There will be a debate on the European Community budget.
[Additional relevant document for debate on seal pup skins: Report of the European Legislation Committee HC 34-v (1982–83) para 2.]

Mr. Foot: May I put to the right hon. Gentleman two or three matters arising from questions to the Prime Minister a few moments ago? First, we still have not had a clear statement from the Prime Minister on the Government's policy of lending money and supplying arms to Argentina, a matter which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). My hon. Friend has still not had a satisfactory reply. I am sure that the rest of the House and the country are still waiting for it. I hope that that will be arranged and that there will be a full statement on those two interlocking questions.
There is also the question of British Shipbuilders. The Prime Minister's campaign about buying British must have been the shortest campaign in history. Have there been any further discussions with British Shipbuilders on this matter? Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that the Government should make a further statement to the House on this subject? That is certainly our view. When are we to have the debate on the public expenditure White Paper, about which I asked last week?
There are also two major questions on international affairs. We have asked constantly for a debate on disarmament. I am sure that the discussions we have had with Vice-President Bush make that all the more necessary. I hope, therefore, that the Government will very soon announce when we will have that full debate on disarmament. In addition, the Brandt commission report "Common Crises" has been published in the past day or two—the new report of the Brandt commission, as it is described. We believe that there should be a full

Government response to the report and a debate on the matter. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will say when that is to occur. May I suggest to him that a very good day for starting the debate either on disarmament or on the Brandt commission report would be the one on which we are debating the unnecessary and scandalous proposals for timetable motions.
All the right hon. Gentleman has to do is accept my advice on this matter and we can have the debate on the Brandt report right away. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would also have the satisfaction of at least seeking to give some decent time for the discussion of those terrible measures.

Mr. Biffen: When it comes to guillotines, I always know that the Leader of the Opposition eyes me across the Dispatch Box as a very uncertain apprentice at a craft of which he is a true master.
With regard to the Brandt commission report, the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it has been published only very recently. Perhaps the most appropriate course would be for both sides of the House to study it before considering what is the next appropriate step.
The right hon. Gentleman requested a debate on disarmament. I have in the past shared with the right hon. Gentleman the belief that this is a matter of the utmost topicality which could well secure the time of either Opposition or Government. I recognise that there is a great desire that there should be a debate on this subject. I hope that we can take that matter further.
With regard to a debate on public expenditure, the right hon. Gentleman may feel that perhaps it would be most appropriate, first, to allow the White Paper on public expenditure to be considered by the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service and for the House to have the benefit of its comments before arranging the debate. I believe that there should be a debate, but since I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will wish to join me in confirming the importance of Select Committees, the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service should have an opportunity to make its comments.
With regard to the problems about British Shipbuilders, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Energy made a statement on Monday. I note that the right hon. Gentleman would like thorough consideration of the matter, and I take account of that, but I can give no undertaking, as I am sure he will appreciate. Finally, the House will have heard my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister deal with the points of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) about relations with Argentina and the terms of loans. I cannot go further that that today.

Mr. Foot: On one or two matters the right hon. Gentleman's replies are unsatisfactory. We believe and understand that there may be some new developments with regard to British Shipbuilders and the Korean ship. If there are, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will absolutely ensure that we have a statement on the subject. The matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover still needs to be cleared up.
As for the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion that we should accept the doctrine that public expenditure reports or White Papers should go to Select Committees first before they come to the House, he knows perfectly well that that could be used as an excuse for postponing debates and for postponing them even beyond Budget day. I hope


that the right hon. Gentleman will not fall into that trap. I advise him to avoid it immediately. The best way to avoid it is to ensure that we have an earlier date. We cannot allow proper debates to be held up by Select Committees doing their work.

Mr. Biffen: I accept at once the anxiety of the Leader of the Opposition to maintain the authority of the Chamber in relation to Select Committees in our approach to these debates. I must point out that the public expenditure White Paper has been published about six weeks earlier than usual. Part of the reason for that was to allow for consideration by the Select Committee so that it can be debated with that advantage. One of the obligations on the House is to arrange its business so as to try to make the best use of the Select Committees, in a constructive and partnership role. I take at once the importance that the right hon. Gentleman attaches to the Korean shipbuilding order. If there are developments that are appropriate to be put to the House, I shall do my best to ensure that they are.

Mr. A. J. Beith: Since the Parliamentary Constituencies (Wales) Order is with us next week, may we expect the Scottish order the following week?

Mr. Biffen: : I am not in a position to answer that, but I imagine that there is great enthusiasm throughout the House that all the orders—including the English order—should soon be authorised so that we can fight on equitable constituency boundaries.

Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: Will my right hon. Friend find time in the very near future to debate the problems of war widows, which has been highlighted recently by the widow of Flight Lieutenant Nicolson, VC? The widows of those who died in the Falkland Islands and in Northern Ireland are being treated properly and fairly, but the 15,000 widows left from the first world war and the 55,000 from the second world war are being treated disgracefully by this country. They receive pensions that are a quarter of those received by the widows of men who died in other conflicts. If the conscience of this House and country is to be stirred, is it not time to rouse people to ensure that money can be found to treat fairly and honourably those who made the sacrifices needed to preserve this country's honour?

Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend has properly raised a matter that is of concern to both sides of the House. I think that the point was raised a fortnight ago and I can only repeat what I then said, which was that the Budget and the Finance Bill that flows from it would be appropriate occasions to ventilate this issue.

Mr. Neil Carmichael: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Mental Health (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill is about to leave the other place and receive its Second Reading in this House? Will he bear in mind the Bill's importance and give it the same Special Standing Committee treatment as was given to the English Bill?

Mr. Biffen: Obviously, I take note of what the hon. Gentleman says. He may know that the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Foulkes) also raised this issue with me some time ago and I corresponded with him, pointing out some of the difficulties which do not make the Bill particularly appropriate for such treatment.

Mr. John Stokes: Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate next week on one of the subjects that is under discussion by the General Synod of the Church of England, which is meeting this week? I refer not to the nuclear debate but to the proposals to abolish lay patronage, which has existed for more than 1,000 years in this country and whose abolition would be strongly opposed by many hon. Members and would be an infringement of the rights of property.

Mr. Biffen: I entirely share my hon. Friend's sentiments, but there is no prospect of finding Government time for that debate next week.

Dr. M. S. Miller: Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that when the Home Secretary introduces the new immigration rules next week, he explains the totally unsatisfactory and even disgraceful situation on the Indian subcontinent? The genuine brides of Scotsmen—as well as Englishmen no doubt—face inordinately lengthy delays just for the right to enter their husbands' country.

Mr. Biffen: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is in his place on the Front Bench and will have heard the hon. Gentleman's remarks. I am sure that he will have taken account of them.

Mr. John Roper: Will the Leader of the House accept that there is support in many parts of the House for a debate on the second report of the Brandt commission, which has recently come out? Will he follow the precedent set by the first report and ensure that copies of the report are made available to hon. Members in the Vote Office? Will the right hon. Gentleman also ensure that, before next Monday's debate on the EC budget, the important green paper from the Commission, "The Future Financing of the Community", is made available to the House, as it is not yet available in this country?

Mr. Biffen: I shall certainly do what I can to see that copies of the latest emanation from the Brandt commission are made available. As to the debate, I have nothing to add to what I said to the Leader of the Opposition. I shall look into the question of the green paper, and inasmuch as it is within the Government's ability, I shall see that such reports are made available.

Mr. David Atkinson: As There have recently been several debates on the regions, particularly those in the northern part of the kingdom, will my right hon. Friend promise the House an early debate on the problems in the south and south-west, particularly in view of the importance of tourism to those areas?

Mr. Biffen: I cannot offer any opportunity next week of a debate in Government time on the problems of the south-west, the south and the tourist industry, but they are all very suitable topics for Adjournment debates.

Mr. Dick Douglas: Will the Leader of the House note that we are all concerned about the Government's position prior to the Williamsburg summit? Will he undertake to make provision so that the Government's position, particularly on the international value of oil, is made clear? Might there be a statement or White Paper prior to the summit, which is the most important international deliberation to take place for some time?

Mr. Biffen: I am sure that the House is not disposed to underestimate the importance of the Williamsburg summit. I shall certainly bear in mind the hon. Gentleman's points, but I hope that he will excuse me if I make no specific commitment this afternoon.

Viscount Cranborne: Does my right hon. Friend not consider that there might be some argument for holding a debate on disarmament at an early date, if only to enable the Leader of the Opposition to reiterate his support for the zero option, which he has expressed on many occasions, notably on 19 November 1981, in exchanges during Prime Minister's Question Time?
Has my right hon. Friend by any chance noticed early-day motion 224 which stands in my name and that of more than 100 right hon. and hon. Members?
[That, in view of the dire need of the people of Poland, and in recognition of the debt the United Kingdom owes the people of Poland for their service in the last World War, this House believes that Her Majesty's Government should provide a free post parcel service to Poland for an initial period of four months, particularly since the governments of Italy and West Germany have done the same with considerable success.]
Will he consider providing time for an early debate on that important subject?

Mr. Biffen: There is general enthusiasm, at least in some quarters, for a debate on disarmament. When that debate eventually takes place it may be better subscribed than the debate on cruise missiles last week. However, I do not see any prospect of providing time for a debate on the early-day motion, because the issue is much more appropriate for the Post Office than for this House.

Mr. John Evans: Is the Leader of the House aware of the growing unease about the problems of concrete industrialised prefabricated housing in this country and of the growing feeling that a major public inquiry should be held to find out how widespread the problem is? Given this problem's inept handling by the Minister for Housing and Construction, will the right hon. Gentleman make early time available for the House to debate this very serious problem?

Mr. Biffen: I cannot accept the strictures on my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction. Concrete houses have been discussed recently—albeit late in the evening—in a debate on Airey houses. The Orlit houses are, in a sense, a dimension of that more general problem. I thought that my hon. Friend the Minister made an open and helpful statement to the House, but I shall bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman has said and I shall draw my hon. Friend's attention to it.

Mr. Tony Marlow: Would not my right hon. Friend be better advised to have the timetable motion on the Telecommunications Bill this week? In that way the House would have been spared a major abuse of its Committee procedures by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding), who spoke for an excruciating 11½ hours. Will my right hon. Friend look into the situation whereby Committee procedures are abused in such a way that there is no proper debate until the guillotine is passed?

Mr. Biffen: I think my hon. Friend is giving an intriguing trailer of the speech I know he will wish to make next Wednesday.

Mr. Laurie Pavitt: Has the Leader of the House noticed that, after 12 months' reluctance, the Secretary of State for Social Services has at last placed in the Vote Office copies of the Greenfield report on effective prescribing? Is he aware that the Pharmaceutical Society says that on 11 drugs alone the National Health Service can save £29 million? Could he therefore arrange a debate on this report at the earliest possible opportunity so that public expenditure may be cut?

Mr. Biffen: I recognise both the importance of the Greenfield report and the satisfaction that it is now in the Vote Office. I will certainly draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, although I must confess that I cannot hold out much hope of Government time being made available in the near future.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Could we have a debate very soon on the arrangements under which regional health authorities distribute money to district health authorities? As a small number of authorities in Britain, including Southend, are deliberately and seriously under-funded to the extent of many millions of pounds, as there is no procedure for appeal and as there is no obligation on the health boards to allocate money according to any formula, would it not be right and proper to have this important issue of principle debated in the House soon?

Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend clearly raises a matter of signal importance. I hesitate to suggest that he might, with a little ingenuity and skill, get it into the debate on the Second Reading debate on Thursday, but I will bear in mind what he is recommending.

Mr. James Lamond: Is the Leader of the House aware that since he first began promising us a debate on disarmament confusion has been added to confusion, with the Prime Minister repudiating the answers even of her own Foreign Secretary, a considerable change in the Prime Minister's own stance on the zero option, the resignation of one Secretary of State for Defence and the trampling underfoot of his successor by demonstrators in favour of disarmament? For the sake of Ministers, if nothing else, is it not better to have an early debate?

Mr. Biffen: With such a record as I seemingly possess, I would expect from the hon. Gentleman encouragement to carry on with the good work.

Mr. Gerry Neale: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the feeling that there should be a debate on the growing concern of many right hon. and hon. Members, touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow), about the comparative lack of debating rules in Standing Committee? Will he consider giving time in the near future for this to be debated on the Floor of the House, bearing in mind that the guillotine debate next week on the Telecommunications Bill will deal essentially with that Bill and whether it should be guillotined rather than with procedure in Standing Committees as a whole?

Mr. Biffen: I take note of what my hon. Friend says. I quite appreciate that there are many who wish to


challenge the findings of the Procedure Committee of 1977–78 which decisively rejected the concept of automatic timetabling, but I must tell my hon. Friend that one must take one's chances when one can. I should have thought that the general proposition he is making would be wholly appropriate for the debate we are to have on Wednesday.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. A large number of hon. Members are rising and I cannot commit myself to call all of them. However, if questions are brief I shall try to call all those hon. Members before we have the statement on the water dispute.

Mr. Peter Hardy: Is the Leader of the House aware that we had yet another unsatisfactory debate last night when the Minister took a large part of the hour and a half available for the House to consider assisted places? I think both sides of the House were complaining about it, as I complained about it when I sat on the Government Benches.
Does the Leader of the House accept that the Minister raised more questions than he answered? Will he also suggest to his colleagues, since we cannot expect any early reform in the structure of late-night debates, that Ministers, when contributing to such debates, should take rather less time than they are currently doing, particularly since they seem to say remarkably little at great length?

Mr. Biffen: I cannot accept the strictures made against my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science. In general terms, I accept entirely the proposition that speeches lose nothing by brevity.

Mr. Greville Janner: When can we expect a debate on the need for opening up the mines in the vale of Belvoir? As the existing mines are swiftly becoming exhausted and grave unemployment is looming, can we at least have a statement from the Secretary of State for the Environment that he will no longer prevent the opening up of the pit at Asfordby, a procedure begun by his predecessor and so disgracefully continued by him?

Mr. Biffen: My right hon. Friend is in his place and will have heard what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said. I will also draw his attention to the point made.

Mr. David Winnick: If the arm-twisting and pressure of the Government Whips and managers on the rebels over the immigration rules does not work next week, what is likely to be the next step in this long-running farcical saga?

Mr. Biffen: A resounding victory on Tuesday.

Mr. Tom Clarke: When the House approaches the debate on the Brandt report which has been promised by the Leader of the House, will there be some form of written statement of the Government's position before the debate or will it consist simply of an oral report and discussion?

Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman has much charm and is seeking to entice me into giving a much more elaborate reply than the one I gave to the Leader of the Opposition, but it would be discourteous to the Leader of the Opposition if I went any further.

Mr. Ioan Evans: Will the Leader of the House give urgent consideration to making a statement

next Thursday about when we will debate disarmament, in view of representations from all quarters of the House, in view of the fact that the United Nations has demanded that Parliament address itself to nuclear disarmament and in view of the fact that the Prime Minister does not seem to understand that she has committed herself to land-based nuclear missiles before the end of the year?

Mr. Biffen: All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that I note in many parts of the House a very real interest in and anxiety to have such a debate, but time is a precious commodity and I shall have to see how best one can encompass the request.

Mr. Stephen Ross: Can I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to last night's "Tonight" programme on BBC 2, which cast grave doubt on the efficiency of cruise and Pershing missiles, which have had more failures than successes? As that information is available to both congressmen and senators in the United States, before we have any defence debate in this House can it be made available to hon. Members here?

Mr. Biffen: The programme can be made available in the sense that a video film of it is readily available. I cannot go further than that.

Mr. Bob Cryer: May I join other hon. Members, particularly those on the Labour Benches, in supporting a request for a debate on disarmament and suggest that the Leader of the House might consider allocating two days to such a debate?
May I also urge him to consider a debate on health and safety at work? He will know as well as I do that more days are lost each year through industrial injuries and accidents than through strike action yet the Government have brought in Bill after Bill attacking trade union's agility to take industrial action. Should the Government not attack the real cause of lost time at work, industrial injury?

Mr. Biffen: I note what the hon. Gentleman says about a debate on disarmament and that he thinks two clays would be more appropriate than one.
I agree that we constantly overlook the importance of industrial injuries. I will certainly take note of the point the hon. Gentleman makes and draw it to the attention of the relevant Minister, but I must say candidly that there is no prospect of Government time being made available for a debate on that topic in the near future.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Does the Leader of the House agree that the role of the Export Credits Guarantee Department is to guarantee money that in some circumstances cannot otherwise be obtained? Does he accept that there is a very serious problem with the ECGD and that some would argue, as indeed some press speculation has suggested, that the whole apparatus is bust? [Interruption.] I do not need any advice from one of the Slater Walker blades. Taking into account the fact that the Crown Agents have been ordering materials and spares for certain countries, including Nigeria, and that firms in this country have not been able to get the money and the Crown Agents cannot get it for them, surely it is time someone came to the Dispatch Box and made a statement on this matter of ECGD and the Crown Agents and the financial circumstances surrounding both departments.

Mr. Biffen: I shall certainly draw the attention of my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Trade to the hon. Gentleman's anxieties about the Export Credits Guarantee Department. I should also have thought that, as the hon. Gentleman has such a passionate feeling about the whole issue, he might have been doing his best to secure an Adjournment debate.

Water Industry (Dispute)

4 pm

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Tom King): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a further statement to the House about the water industry dispute. Since my statement last Thursday there has been little change in the number of people advised as a precaution to boil water. This now stands at 7 million.
There has been a further increase of some 15,000 in the number of properties now without normal supplies which now stands at 38,000. Once again, arrangements have been, or are being made, for alternative supplies. There have been some further reconnections of properties to mains supply. The quality of effluent from many sewage treatment works continues to deteriorate and some streams are polluted, but there has been no serious effect on rivers.
In my statement last Thursday, I informed the House that the employers were ready to have immediate negotiations about higher earnings in relation to improved productivity under the terms recommended by the mediator in paragraph 8 of his report. These negotiations took place on Sunday at which time the employers tabled a series of proposals. These proposals covered improvements in productivity, pay by credit transfer and changes in working practices.
In spite of 12 hours of discussion at ACAS on Sunday, no agreement was possible. At this point, since there was still no agreement, the employers exercised their right to invoke the final stage of the agreed procedure, in accordance with the agreement signed by both parties and witnessed by Mr. Lowry of ACAS on 21 January. I now quote from Mr. Lowry's letter which accompanied the agreement:
The third sentence of the clause deals specifically with possibility of arbitration—the final stage in the procedure. It emphasises that arbitration is the course of last resort which means that it will only be used when negotiations properly carried out (in this instance with the help of the mediator) have failed to produce an agreement. I consider that the sentence is absolutely clear. In the circumstances of such a disagreement either party would have the right to seek arbitration and the other would have the obligation to respond.
Last night ACAS was formally told by the trade union side that it was not willing to accept arbitration. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame".]
In my two previous statements to the House, I urged the earliest possible end to this damaging dispute which while only seriously affecting a small proportion of the population is none the less causing very real hardship and distress to many, not least the sick and the elderly.
I also stated my belief that the offer of an increase of an average of £10 a week, quite apart from any further benefits through increased productivity, is by any standards this year a very fair offer indeed.
I also made clear in both statements that there were two main options to achieve an end to the dispute and an immediate return to work. The first of these options involved negotiations on higher earnings for productivity as recommended by the mediator. These negotiations failed to produce agreement. There therefore remains the second option that the agreement reached through ACAS must be honoured and the terms of the national agreement requiring arbitration must be followed.
If normal service to the public is to be resumed at the earliest possible moment and if the water workers are to


lose no more earnings, it is vital that those concerned reconsider their position and agree to accept binding arbitration as clearly stated in the agreement.
The whole House will appreciate the seriousness of the situation if a clear agreement, freely entered into, that provided a sensible procedure for resolving this dispute is not to be honoured.

Mr. Gerald Kaufman: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the country views with grave misgiving the prolongation of this potentially exceptionally grave dispute and that all hon. Members want an early and honourable end to it before major damage and hardship, beyond what is already being suffered, is brought about? It is useful that following his unhelpful radio interview last Friday the Secretary of State has said nothing today to exacerbate this situation further. However, will he have a word with the Secretary of State for Employment whose false and malicious statement last Tuesday could have been a major setback to any prospect of a settlement?
Why, in his statement, does the Secretary of State not present the situation in the balanced manner of the ACAS report rather than in the partial way in which he has presented it to the House today? Why did he not quote the condemnation of the employers' approach in last night's statement by ACAS saying:
Expectations raised by certain statements made to the media by the employers and subsequently dashed have not made the negotiations easier and have prejudiced the prospects of a settlement.
The Minister has referred to negotiations which he says took place last Sunday. There were no negotiations. What happened was that the employers stated their terms and did not budge from them throughout the day. Why are the employers so reluctant to accept a proposal by the unions of an inquiry whose terms of reference would deal with wider issues such as the restoration of a stable and long-term industrial relations framework in the water industry? Will the Secretary of State assure the House that the Government are not involved in the refusal by the employers?
Why did not the Secretary of State tell the House that the unions stated last night that if an inquiry had been allowed to proceed the dispute could have been over by the weekend? Why did he not tell the House that the unions involved in the dispute have an honourable record of accepting the recommendations of inquiries—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State for Employment has no conception of what honourable means.

Mr. Speaker: Order. In the heat of the moment, people say things that they would not otherwise say. The right hon. Gentleman will withdraw that remark.

Mr. Kaufman: At your request, certainly, Mr. Speaker.
On the other hand, I hope that the Secretary of State will withdraw his untrue statement on Tuesday that in the water industry there is
a long trail of agreements that have been voluntarily entered into and ruthlessly broken".—[Official Report, 8 February 1983; Vol. 36 c. 874.]
and if he will not withdraw it, he will document it, as the Department of Employment, questioned about it by the press, says that it knows nothing about it.
The Secretary of State should make clear his wish that the employers accept an inquiry on the terms of reference

proposed. This dispute must be settled quickly and honourably. We on this side will do our utmost to bring that about.

Mr. King: I certainly join the right hon. Gentleman in his opening remarks. This is a grave and serious dispute.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Will the tight hon. Gentleman withdraw that statement?

Mr. King: It is causing intolerable hardship to many of our fellow citizens. I should like to see it ended at the earliest opportunity. The right hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He draws attention to the concern of ACAS over expectations being raised rather higher than was justified. We are aware that the original interview with Mr. Hill on "The World at One" by Robin Day did give rise to a misleading impression. The right hon. Gentleman then criticises me for an unhelpful intervention when I was seeking precisely to avoid the charge that expectations had been raised too high, and echoing what Mr. Hill had himself said on "Newsnight" that night when he sought to correct what he realised could have been a misleading impression. I will not take the House through the transactions, but hon. Members will be familiar with those broadcasts.
The right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) said that there had been no negotiations during the 12 hours in which the two sides discussed possibilities of improved earnings for productivity. He will be aware—I have a list of proposals made—that there were a number of proposals, some involving earnings improvement for everybody on a modest scale, some involving significant increases for those who change their working practices and some involving a reduction in the working week next year for everybody in the industry. At the same time, the employers invited the unions to put forward any proposals that they had to improve earnings through improved productivity. I am sorry to say that they were unable to respond. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, when referring to the breaking of agreements, spoke of the one-day strike, which I am sure that the House would not support, and which took place in November in breach of every agreement. At the moment, there is a procedure for the settlement of the dispute. We are trying to get people to revert to the procedures in the existing national agreement.
The right hon. Member for Ardwick and the Leader of the Opposition will know that it is fundamental to any system of industrial relations that if an agreement is signed—I was trained in this when I was in industry by some tough union leaders—union leaders should take pride in seeing that it is honoured. The seriousness of this problem is that there is a specific agreement, witnessed by the chairman of ACAS. The problem for ACAS now is that the unions, sadly, are refusing to honour it. I hope that they will reconsider their position.

Mr. Kaufman: After a hurried conversation with the Secretary of State for Employment, the right hon. Gentleman has dragged out what he claims is one example—or is it two? Will he now document what the Secretary of State for Employment called
a long trail of agreements that have been voluntarily entered into and ruthlessly broken by the unions concerned."—[Official Report, 8 February 1983,; Vol. 36, c. 874.]?
If the right hon. Gentleman shares the Secretary of State for Employment's view, expressed in those disgraceful


words, he could not rely on the good faith of the unions to honour an arbitration agreement if arbitration were proceeded with.
Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that the unions involved have an honourable record in accepting the recommendations of inquiries? Is he impugning the integrity of the union negotiators? If he accepts the integrity of the union negotiators, will he encourage the employers to take part in an inquiry?

Mr. King: I am not impugning anybody's integrity, and it would be singularly unhelpful if I did. The decision so far taken by the union leaders is unwise, and unwise for the whole trade union movement. How can the employers in this dispute possibly go forward, as they have been invited to do, to enter into fresh agreements about some fresh form of negotiation if they have no confidence that this agreement, so seriously entered into and witnessed by the chairman of ACAS, will be honoured? Some agreements can be vague, but this has been very carefully drawn out. If it is not honoured, that is serious.
What I have said on this serious matter, about which everybody who cares about the proper conduct of industrial relations in this country must be concerned, should be reconsidered and the resolution of the matter as provided for in the agreement, should be pursued immediately.

Mr. David Steel: Is the Secretary of State aware that, while the failure to use the agreed arbitration procedure is deplorable, the public, listening to the various interviews given on radio and television over the past few days by both sides to the dispute, have received the clear impression that the negotiations have been conducted with an unparalleled degree of downright incompetence? Will the Secretary of State consider calling both sides together and offering to set up an independent inquiry into the pay and conditions of the water industry workers?

Mr. King: It was always known that the negotiations would be difficult this year. There is the issue of what is called the upper quartile. It was always recognised, and that is why the employers at the very start, faced as they were with the wide gulf between what they thought the industry could afford and what the unions expected—it is generally known, and the unions have just reconfirmed, that they expect something in excess of 15 per cent. this year—

Mr. Skinner: What is wrong with that?

Mr. King: —that with this wide gap it was necessary to have some arbitration to resolve the matter. This is why that is in their national agreement. I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman, if I interpret correctly his opening remarks, would join me in calling for the strict observance of the national agreement and specifically the agreement so recently signed.

Mr. Eric Cockeram: Can my right hon. Friend confirm the announcement on the tape at lunchtime today that the main 75-mile pipeline to Birmingham has burst outside Ludlow, and that, further, if it is not repaired, the Birmingham supply will be endangered in three days' time? If that is so and my right hon. Friend cannot get that pipeline repaired by the water industry, will

he accept that there are many worthy citizens in Ludlow and elsewhere who will repair the pipeline in the interests of the sick and the elderly in the city of Birmingham?

Mr. King: I was not aware that there had been a burst. I have heard a report that there may be a blockage, but in any case that there was some interference with the flow. Clearly, this is covered by the emergency cover arrangements that are part of an agreement between the unions and the water industry. I trust that in a matter of this importance, the emergency cover arrangements will operate. It is known to the House, and I pay tribute to it, that in many parts of the country, where it has been necessary, the water workers have been prepared to take emergency steps to meet emergency arrangements. While there have been one or two problems in certain areas, I hope that people will recognise the importance of strict observation of the emergency cover arrangements.

Mr. Peter Hardy: Will the Minister confirm what he seemed to be saying in his statement, that the water workers were offered a certain £10 a week extra? How can he be sure of knowing what the employers are offering, when the employers do not seem to know what they are offering?

Mr. King: I make my case clear—the £10 is an average. I have carefully checked this against the average earnings. If the hon. Gentleman calculates the 7·3 per cent. against the figures of average earnings shown in the new earnings survey, he will see that that is one check. He can then tack it on the base rates and add it to the average earnings. He will find that the figures are correct.
The figures are difficult, and while certain people have sought to exploit the details, the figures depend on the years of service, on the amount of overtime worked, on whether the person is on a shift, and on a number of different factors that can affect earnings. The average of £10 is, on my best information, correct.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: Is the Secretary of State aware that his statement is perhaps a little complacent as it is now suggested that there may be raw sewage in the streets in north Wales and other parts of the country, particularly Gloucester? While my party would accept the Secretary of State's attempts to get binding arbitration on both sides, he will be aware that there is some mistrust in the arbitration procedure, not least because, in principle, a year ago Ministers decided to bring to an end the arbitration procedure in the water industry. In the light of that, will the Secretary of State consider the possibility of a committee of inquiry, but on the assumption that it would have to be binding on both sides as a possible way of making progress in what is now a tangled and increasingly difficult dispute?

Mr. King: There is no truth in the right hon. Lady's suggestion that we are getting rid of arbitration. The only question that has arisen, which is one of the features of the water industry's structural procedures, is the unilateral access to arbitration. That is a different matter, and it is not necessarily the arbitration procedure.
I have no reports on the right hon. Lady's comment about sewage. At the moment, I stand by the statement that I have made. However, I am grateful to her for what she says about agreements. Anybody who has the most elementary knowledge of industrial relations knows that if


there cannot be some confidence that agreements will be honoured, we have no foundation on which a sensible industrial relations structure can be built.
The right hon. Lady queried whether I think that the Government's record on arbitration is good, and suggested that there may be concern about the Government's involvement. The agreement to go to arbitration was signed on 21 January. The Government were aware of the terms under which the agreement would operate. The unions have raised difficulties in going to arbitration.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his robust assertion on the radio the other morning that the employers do not have a penny of their own. Every penny laid on the table must be met by the ratepayers and the water ratepayers, many of whom in my constituency would regard £140 a week as a prince's ransom.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the most serious aspects of the dispute is the physical occupation of several water installations by those who have no legal right to be there? Is there not a great danger that if this fact is not made clear, and if the occupiers believe that they can stop the water, other citizens who have an equal right to the installations' products may feel equally entitled to enter those installations to ensure that that does not happen? That way lies anarchy. Will my right hon. Friend use his good offices to ensure that those responsible in these matters comply with the law?

Mr. King: I know that the water authorities take a serious view of the occupation of plant. They are taking steps in each case to ensure that the position is corrected.

Mr. Skinner: Anarchy.

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I say to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner)—

Mr. Skinner: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. —that if every hon. Member behaved as he behaves, the proceedings of the House would come to a stop. He has hardly stopped his running commentary while other people are talking. It really is intolerable. He must exercise some self-control.

Mr. Skinner: I was only—

Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman argues like that, I will ask him to leave the Chamber.

Mr. King: We view this matter with great seriousness and action is being taken in each case.
Although I would not use the phrase "a prince's ransom", the earnings of manual workers in the water industry, having regard to the offer being made, are not unfair. While they may seek to argue their case for further improvement—nobody denies their right to do that—a procedure must be followed. The offer that has already been made, on top of the present level of earnings, cannot justify the hardship and distress that are being caused up and down the country.
The cold weather that the country is facing at the moment is causing problems in different areas. There are the problems of frozen stand pipes and of elderly people having to carry water over icy or snowy tracks. It is intolerable that this dispute should continue. I hope that people will reconsider their position and accept binding arbitration.

Mr. Reg Race: On the question whether the ACAS agreement is to be honoured, will the Secretary of State tell the House whether there have been proper negotiations, since he interfered in the negotiations and told the employers to reduce their offer? Secondly, will he confirm that the employers told the workers that a £10 increase was on offer but that it turned out to be 50p? Thirdly, the employers did not even know what offer they were making because they calculated it wrongly. How in those circumstances can it be said that proper negotiations have taken place? Does the Secretary of State not recognise that for many of the workers on the lower rates of pay, who are not on productivity schemes, the current offer is inadequate?

Mr. King: As to negotiations, when the employers met they increased their offer three times. They have offered to enter into negotiations on further earnings through higher productivity. Part of the signed agreement to which I have referred was that negotiations should first lake place under an independent mediator. It was only when he decided that proper negotiations had taken place that he would seek, if agreement had not been reached, to become the mediator and to make a recommendation. He made an original recommendation when he was satisfied that proper negotiations had taken place.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must inform the House that I have received notice of two applications under Standing Order No. 9. I will allow questions to run until half past four and then take the applications under Standing Order No. 9.

Sir David Price: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is no entirely objective method for settling what a water worker or anyone else should be paid? Is he also aware that the normal commercial constraints that prevent many people from pushing their luck on pay do not apply in a statutory monopoly? In those circumstances, is it not in the national interest that, not only on this occasion but normally, water workers' pay should be settled through arbitration?

Mr. King: Settlements should be in accordance with agreements that are freely entered into by both sides. I understand why my hon. Friend has raised this point. It is extremely important that this agreement that provides for arbitration is honoured.

Mr. Giles Radice: Is the Minister aware that the dispute could have been settled by the weekend if ACAS had set up an inquiry under section 5 of the Employment Protection Act, 1975? Will he encourage ACAS to set up such an inquiry and the employers to agree to it?

Mr. King: Is the hon. Gentleman telling me that the unions would agree as a binding obligation to accept the findings of an inquiry? I understand that they have not been willing to do that, although it is provided for in the agreement. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman, with his knowledge of trade union procedure, would read the agreement and understand why I made the statements that I did from the Dispatch Box.

Mr. David Madel: Should not both sides follow Mr. Lowry's advice on arbitration?
Should they not re-examine the mediator's recommendations on efficiency and bonus payments? There has been much misinterpretation by both sides. Should we not ask the mediator to come back quickly to look at them and to call off the strike while the mediator tries to sort things out?

Mr. King: I have sought to put both options before the House in the statements that I made. It is clear that it is not possible at this stage to get an agreement on the first option. In that case, the second option must be pursued. It is no longer acceptable to the vast majority of people for this dispute to linger on. The dispute is damaging the industry, the water workers are losing money, and arbitration is the way to resolve the dispute.

Mr. Bob Cryer: Does the Minister accept that one of the most nauseating factors is Tory Members lining their pockets with a multiplicity of directorships and parliamentary advisorships, yet telling manual workers to keep their wage claims down? Does he also accept that the atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion in this dispute has been engineered by his intervention on the side of the employers? The lower-paid workers in the water industry have not had an adequate offer, and those affected by productivity agreements recognise that with 3·5 million people on the dole, productivity is another formula for putting more people on the dole.

Mr. King: That is a pretty cheap and unhelpful intervention. This is a serious dispute. It is nauseating to find an hon. Member who affects to support the trade union movement who does not realise the importance to the trade union movement as well as to the country of encouraging agreements to be honoured at all times.

Mr. Reg Prentice: If the unions continue to refuse arbitration, which is a clear breach of faith, and if the hardship to the public and the risk to health increase, will the Secretary of State bear in mind some further possibilities? First, he might issue guidance to the water authorities encouraging them to use private contractors for repairs to mains and other equipment and, secondly, he might use troops where that would be helpful.

Mr. King: I do not wish to speculate on future developments. I hope that there will be a reconsideration of the position. I hope that the Opposition will lend their good offices to achieve that. There is no question that the Government will stand idly by if there is a serious risk to health or to the life of the community. If that were the case, any Government should take steps to see that essential services were naintained.

Mr. Laurie Pavitt: Will the Secretary of State, on behalf of hon. Members on both sides of the House and their constituents, express a word of appreciation to the water workers who have kept flowing the many gallons of water needed for kidney machines? Is he aware that in one hospital not far from the House a renal unit has 81 home dialysis machines in operation, all of which have been kept fully supplied with water? Will he express a public word of thanks to the water workers for honouring that commitment?

Mr. King: I do that unreservedly. The Government appreciate the efforts that have been made by many people to try to keep services going. Sadly, that is not the universal picture. My plea today is that it should be.

Mr. Gerald Kaufman: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
the potentially grave damage to public health of a prolonged continuation of the dispute in the water industry and the need for an early and honourable settlement.
The matter is specific because the dispute has now reached its 18th day with no clear prospect of an early and honourable settlement. It is important because water is a basic necessity of life and the maintenance of an efficient and properly maintained water and sewerage system is indispensable to public health and well being. It is urgent because the latest discussions have broken down, accompanied by an unprecedented rebuke by ACAS to the employers.
The dispute can do great and serious damage to public health if it continues much longer. An early settlement is vital, and this House must play whatever part it can in bringing that about.

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,
the potentially grave damage to public health of a prolonged continuation of the dispute in the water industry and the need for an early and honourable settlement.
I am satisfied that the matter raised by the right hon. Gentleman is proper to be discussed under Standing Order No. 9. Does the right hon. Gentleman have the leave of the House?
The pleasure of the House having been signified, the motion stood over under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) until the commencement of public business on Monday 14 February.
I should tell the House that the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Williams) made a similar application. The debate on this matter on Monday will last for three hours.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): In view of what you have just said, Mr. Speaker, my announcement a short time ago of the business for Monday must be wholly reconsidered. With your permission, and for the convenience of the House, I shall make a statement later this evening on the revised business for Monday.

Mr. Speaker: I think that that would be in the interests of the House.

Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Since the Leader of the House has said that he will make a statement later this evening, can you ensure that the annunciators give advance notification of when that statement will be, as they would, for example, for a business statement on a Friday?

Mr. Speaker: It is reasonable to request that when an important statement concerning the arrangements of hon.


Members is to be made there should be about one hour's notice on the indicator so that hon. Members can come into the Chamber and hear the statement.

Welsh Affairs

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. David Hunt.]

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Nicholas Edwards): When the Welsh Office was first established, it was perhaps appropriate that the Secretary of State used the Welsh day to review the entire area of his responsibilities. I do not believe that that is any longer practicable or sensible if the speech is to be either coherent or of reasonable length. The responsibilities of the Department are now too extensive to cover them all in a single debate.
In any case, during the past year in the Grand Committee, we have looked in detail at the ports in Wales, education and training, tourism, regional policy and the National Health Service, while the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs has spent many hours on the subject of water and its report is awaited. Other subjects nave been covered in debates on the Adjournment or on the Consolidated Fund, including the nationalised industries, which were discussed earlier this week. Furthermore, Welsh Members have had frequent opportunities to join in general economic debates, and in addition statements on local authority expenditure have provided scope for probing Government policy on local government issues.
Therefore, I shall not attempt today to refer to every topic that is of legitimate interest and concern to right hon. and hon. Members. They will have every oppertunity to raise them, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will endeavour to reply to as many as possible of the points raised in the debate. I intend to concentrate on some key developments in policy and to report on the progress of programmes that I consider to be of especial significance for the future. The programmes that I have in mind are of such central importance that in considering them we may find some common ground, whatever our political approach and however deeply seated the differences that exist between us on economic and social policy.
At a time when the whole world is beset by recession, when uncertainties in the oil markets are sending shock waves through the financial markets generally and when decisions taken in other countries profoundly affect our own, and especially after a period of major structural change that has sent unemployment to high and deeply distressing levels, it would be very surprising if there were not radically different solutions offered.
Perhaps in those circumstances I will be thought optimistic in hoping to find any common ground. Yet, whatever differences may exist on the macroeconomic approach, and on the diagnosis of the factors that have brought us to our present plight, there has been common ground for a very long time between the parries, and especially among the Welsh Members of this House, about certain fundamental objectives and in particular about the need to clear the dereliction of the past, to improve our industrial infrastructure and to transform those aspects of our economic position that have led to Wales being relatively disadvantaged in relation to the rest of the United Kingdom, while seeking at the same time to mitigate some of the especially adverse social consequences that are the outcome of our past industrial experience. The role of the Welsh Office in any given


economic position and against the background of national measures, is to respond to the needs of Wales. Never is that more true than at a time of deep recession, of tragically high unemployment and of massive structural change.
An example of this common approach can be found in the trunk road programme that has been pursued consistently by successive Secretaries of State since the Welsh Office took over this responsibility. My predecessor inherited schemes that had been prepared by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Thomas) during his time in office, and I have had the privilege of opening important new roads, such as the Pencoed-Stormy Down section of the M4, that were initiated by my predecessor. During this period in government we have seen the completion of about 55 miles of trunk road improvements costing more than £1 million each, including the Castleton-Coryton and Pencoed-Stormy Down sections of the M4, the Britannia bridge and its approaches, the Brecon southern and eastern bypass, the Dolgellau bypass, the Raglan-Abergavenny link, the first stage of the Holywell bypass, the New Inn bypass and the Pontyfenni diversion on the A40, to name just some of them. Despite the need to constrain public expenditure, we have pressed on with this programme and at present there are major schemes under way on the Llanfair PG bypass, on the Bangor bypass, on the Hawarden bypass and on the Llandulas-Glanconwy section of the A55. In the south, the Carmarthen southern bypass is well on the way to completion, the KilgettyStepaside bypass is making good progress. We have started on the Culverhouse Cross-Capel Llanilltern link and on the major road improvement on the A470 from Abercynon to Pentrebach, and we have just let the contract for major improvements to the Carmarthen-Bancyfelin section of the A40.
I will be giving full details of our road programme in the years ahead when I publish the White Paper "Roads in Wales" in a few weeks time. In the period 1983–85 we expect to make massive progress on the A55 including a start on the Conwy crossing. In the south detailed design work on the Baglan-Lonlas section of the M4 is proceeding and the statutory processes have been completed. Subject to completion of statutory procedures, I hope that we shall start work on the Crosshands-Llanddarog section of the A48 next spring. Schemes at present in progress and which we expect to complete in the next two-three years will produce another 40 miles of new trunk road at a cost of £264 million. It is significant that of the schemes at present in progress or planned to start before the end of 1985 at least 15 involve bypasses of important communities. In addition, through the transport supplementary grant, we are giving priority to a number of major schemes that complement the improvements to the strategic trunk road network.
The road programme provides one impressive example of policies consistently applied with determination by Governments of different political complexion. Another in the field of social responsibility can be found in the Health Service.

Mr. Roy Hughes: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the House some up-to-date information about the Severn bridge, which is the vital artery for South

Wales? As he knows, there has been considerable concern about it. In this Welsh day debate he should be able to provide some up-to-date information, especially upon the necessity of a second river crossing.

Mr. Edwards: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has already told the House that he has received a detailed consultant's report that will take some little time to examine and to carry to the next stage. That work is being undertaken urgently. We shall give the House further information as soon as we are able to do so. My right hon. Friend has made it clear that he intends to be extremely open about the bridge. At every stage, when further information is available, he will report to the House. We shall be making the Government's intentions plain. I am sure that that is the right way in which to proceed on such an extremely important road link. I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about it.
There is another area in which we can find a consistency of approach—the hospitals and the Health Service. I inherited from my predecessor a substantial hospital building programme and despite the need for economy generally I have pressed on with that programme. I have not had to delay the start of any major hospital projects for financial reasons. Work has now been completed on all the major schemes that were in progress when I took office. Since May 1979 starts have been made on major schemes, with a total estimated cost of £81 million. These include the continuation of the programme providing a network of district general hospitals covering the Principality, with starts being made on those at Wrexham, Bridgend and Morriston. Advance works have begun at Llanelli with the main scheme programmed to commence in 1983–84. My officials are urgently considering proposals to redevelop Llandudno general hospital.
We have continued to provide real growth in the resources made available to the National Health Service in Wales and since our debate in the Welsh Grand Committee I have announced details of the way in which £13·5 million extra is to be provided for hospital, community and other health services next year, representing some 2·2 per cent. growth in real terms. This will provide for significant development in the health care provided to the people of Wales. It will enable us to go ahead with the first year of our three-year programme to end inequalities in health authority funding. This has been a very sore point for a considerable period and I believe that the allocation of £2·2 million of additional resources, which will go next year to the under-funded authorities, will be greatly welcomed. In addition, it has been possible to find the funds—£4·4 million—to meet in full the revenue consequences of major capital projects; to meet other centrally funded commitments and to provide no less than £2·3 million for health authorities' discretionary use on new developments.
I am particularly pleased that we have been able to meet from these extra funds the full cost of the first year of our strategy to transform community services for the mentally handicapped. This initiative that we have taken in Wales has been widely welcomed and is acknowledged as giving a lead in this important area of social concern to not only the United Kingdom but many other countries.
The all-Wales working party that I set up to prepare the strategy proposed the establishment of certain vanguard areas, including one in rural Wales and one in industrial


south Wales, covering together a total population of between 200,000 and 250,000. Vanguard areas are intended to test the viability and self-sufficiency of the new patterns of community-based services. The authorities and voluntary interests in the selected areas must therefore be wholeheartedly committed to the spirit as well as to the letter of the strategy, and I take this to be the crucial factor.
The public consultation and the submissions that have been received have been of considerable help in making this very difficult decision. I considered carefully all the representations that we have received together with the evidence we have about the attitudes and capabilities of the authorities. I have decided, taking into account the views of the social services authorities involved, that the urban vanguard area should be in the Rhondda district of mid-Glamorgan and that the rural vanguard area should be the Arfon and Anglesey districts of Gwynedd.
The working party proposed that about one third of the total additional resources to be made available should go on developments in the vanguard areas and that the remaining two thirds should be deployed according to need throughout the rest of Wales. I endorse that conclusion. This means that even outside the vanguard areas significant developments will be possible involving no less than a threefold increase in the present level of spending on social services for the mentally handicapped.

Mr. Dafydd Wigley: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the announcement that he has just made, which represents a significant step forward. I welcome the fact that the Arfon and Anglesey districts are to be one of the two vanguard areas. What will be the financial position after the coming year? He has referred to the resources that are to be available for the first year of the project. Can he give an assurance that there will be adequate resources for subsequent years?

Mr. Edwards: The hon. Gentleman has taken a great interest in the project. The Government indicated throughout that the project should be a priority for expenditure. We discussed the circumstances in great detail in our debate in the Welsh Grand Committee. In the first year we have more than adequately met our commitment. That is a sign of our future intentions. I cannot make a financial commitment for the years ahead.
Another area for concern is the condition of much of our housing stock. The Welsh house condition survey makes it clear that the rehabilitation of our older houses must continue to be a major priority. That is why I have told local authorities that in this financial year they may spend on rehabilitation without regard to their allocation ceilings and that in the coming financial year additional allocations will be available. The response to the grants measures, including the 90 per cent. level of grant now available, has been dramatic. The latest returns show that £26 million has been paid in grants in the first three quarters of this financial year, compared with only £16·5 million in the whole of 1981–82, and a total of £57 million in the whole of the preceeding five years. At the end of December, local authorities had on their books 41,000 applications awaiting approval, with a face value of £109 million. This demonstrates both the scale of the need, and the Government's determination in tackling it. I hope that the local authorities will show an equal determination in tackling and dealing with the applications as quickly as

possible. Of particular relevance to our old industrial areas is the new concept of enveloping, in which, I am glad to note, a number of Welsh local authorities are showing a keen interest. Newport is already well advanced with preparing the first enveloping scheme in Wales and other authorities, including Cardiff, have already had discussions with my Department about potential enveloping schemes in their areas. I am glad to say that increasingly, local authorities in Wales are acting in partnership with private builders.

Mr. Alec Jones: What is an enveloping scheme?

Mr. Edwards: An enveloping scheme is the improvement, modernisation and making attractive of a group of houses. Private activity is therefore involved in improving the area. It has been found to be an effective way of modernising blocks of houses and improving the local environment. I am anxious for all the threads to be pulled together in an increased commitment to regenerate urban areas, with local authority and private builders in partnership schemes that provide new housing. These are integrated with enveloping schemes on existing housing, with recreational facilities being provided alongside new commercial and industrial development. The programme that we have undertaken to improve the industrial infrastructure is another example of where there is some common ground. There can be no difference of view as to the need. Faced by the decline of the old basic industries, especially by the massive cutback in employment in the steel industry, it was clearly necessary to undertake urgent measures to attract new industry and create a far more diversified economy.
Again I acknowledge the work that was undertaken by my predecessor. He was right to press ahead as he did with the programme of advance factory building, about which some of us expressed anxiety at the time. That is a programme that we have reinforced on a considerable scale. At Welsh Question Time on Monday, I reminded the House that since its inception the Welsh Development Agency has constructed some 8 million sq ft of factory space of which 6·3 million sq ft represents advance factories. Of that, no less than 5 million sq ft have been completed since this Government came into office.

Mr. Ray Powell: They are empty.

Mr. Edwards: That is a significant achievement. In addition, the DBRW and Cwmbran development corporation have completed more than 1 million sq ft in the same period. Those figures take no account of private sector factory building. However, I do not want to go over that ground again as I have presented the figures to the House several times. All I would say on this occasion, in response to the sedentary interruption of the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell), is that this is a sign of the growing attraction of Wales as an industrial location.
Despite the severity of recession, we have been remarkably successful in filling factories during this period. That offers encouragement to prospective developers, who might have expected the vacancy rate at the present time to be much larger than it is, bearing in mind the scale of our programme in the recent past. The fact is that in 1981, Government agencies allocated almost 300 units and 1·6 million sq ft of space. In 1982 we did better than that, with 388 units, representing nearly 2


million sq ft of floor space. Those figures do not include bespoke projects such as those for Mitel, Inmos or the titanium plant in north-east Wales. Nor do they include expansion projects by companies such as Sony and 3M.

Mr. Ray Powell: Will the right hon. Gentleman take time in the next few days to visit Bridgend industrial estate? Will he examine some of the Welsh Development Agency factories that are now unoccupied, as industrialists have packed up and gone away because of the massive increase in rents that the agency is charging? Is he aware that Brush Power, which employs 300 people, is to close down, that factories on the Bridgend industrial estate have been empty for two or three years, and that there is no possibility of any useful tenants coming to occupy them?

Mr. Edwards: The figures for factory allocations in the past two years that I have quoted are an all-time record. The present vacancy rate of about 15 per cent. is remarkably low considering the scale of construction that has been taking place. Few areas have benefited as much from that programme as Bridgend
The problem of structural change is continuous and will continue. The need to improve competitiveness even more and the modernisation of existing plants often involves major redundancies. The British Alcan Aluminium announcement about Rogerstone is a painful reminder, although the consolidation of rolling operations at this, the company's most up-to-date plant, gives increased grounds for confidence about the future. The pace and scale of industrial change are well illustrated in the area. We have recently had an announcement of 350 job losses but also decisions on new projects by A. B. Electronics, Avana, Bensons Crisps, IG Lintels and Lucas Girling, that involve more than 800 new jobs for the area.
Before I deal with the problems of urban Wales, I want to pause to acknowledge the continuing work of the Development Board for Rural Wales which now calls itself Mid Wales Development. Board factories are already providing nearly 5,000 jobs in mid-Wales. I am now able to announce approval of the board's construction programme for 1983–84 for the area outside Newtown, details of which have been placed in the Library.
The board will include in that programme the construction of a further 32 new advance factories in nine different locations throughout its area. It also intends to acquire 32 acres of land at six locations that permit factory development in the future and to construct 35 houses for key workers at Ystradgynlais and Llandrindod Wells. Among the board's projects is the building of units at Aberystwyth suitable for firms engaged in high technology or research activities. The site involved is adjacent to the campus of the University College of Wales and it is the board's hope that the development will form the basis for a science park on the American model in which academic and commercial expertise can be brought together. The land acquisition proposals contained in the programme are the largest ever approved for the board. The need for such proposals reflects the board's success in constructing and allocating its factories. Since its inception in 1977, it has built about 180 factory units and currently has about two million sq ft of factory space. Like the WDA it was successful in obtaining new tenants in 1982 and allocated 98 units during the year.

Dr. Roger Thomas: The Secretary of State mentioned Ystradgynlais. Is he aware that there are places in my constituency that are far closer to the centre of Wales but are not covered by the Development Board for Rural Wales and miss its guidance sorely?

Mr. Edwards: The hon. Gentleman and I have debated the issue frequently. The same issues were debated with my predecessor who drew up the present boundaries for the area. He is aware that the WDA has responsibilities in the area and an extensive factory building programme. I shall refer to other relevant policies that are available to the Government later.

Mr. Tom Hooson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the development of more factories in mid-Wales is welcome and the concept of a science park in Aberystwyth sounds like an especially imaginative innovation? Can he give the same reply with regard to DBRW factory space as he has been able to give with regard to all available factory space? What percentage of existing space is not yet occupied?

Mr. Edwards: I shall ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to give the percentage. As I said, 98 units were allocated last year. That demonstrates the board's continuing success of getting those factories allocated.
It is, however, to the need for substantial investment to improve the urban environment in Wales that I wish to devote most attention. I do not have to emphasise to Welsh Members the important part played by the Welsh Development Agency in the clearance of dereliction and inland reclamation. Increasingly the tool by which we have sought to tackle the areas of dereliction, both in our valley towns and in our larger cities, has been through the urban programme. We are not just talking about capital expenditure. We are talking about programmes worked up by local authorities that know their areas, programmes which include important revenue support schemes for social purposes—schemes which encourage voluntary activity and a remarkable range of initiatives designed to improve the environment for living and working in urban areas generally.
I have already announced to the House that I have set aside some £21 million for the combined urban development grant programme for 1983–84. It is my present intention to allocate about £17·7 million to the normal urban programme. This allocation compares with £15·3 million for the initial programme for 1982–83, an allocation that we were able to supplement later using underspends elsewhere. Full details of the programme have been placed in the Library. Ongoing schemes absorb just over £6 million, new schemes take just over £11 million and there is a small allocation for holiday schemes and reserves. Just over £12·5 million is allocated to capital and just over £5 million to revenue projects, which is very similar to the allocation in previous years.
In selecting schemes for approval I have been concerned to give further encouragement to the creation of small businesses and to economic regeneration. Some £6 million has therefore been allocated for new nursery factory units, workshops and other job creating schemes. The programme also includes a wide variety of environmental, recreational and social schemes designed to enrich the quality of life in our urban areas. These


schemes will be of great direct benefit to the communities concerned while at the same time enhancing the prospects of inward investment.
I have again given special attention to areas of high unemployment. The five designated districts—Cardiff, Newport, Swansea, Rhondda and Blaenau Gwent—will together receive a quarter of the total resources. I have also made substantial allocations to individual authorities in north-east and south-west Wales which are experiencing particular economic difficulties.
For the first time, I have agreed to allow certain time-expired schemes to be phased out on a tapering basis for up to two years beyond the date on which assistance would normally cease. This is an exceptional arrangement, which I have agreed should be applied to a number of existing worthwhile Welsh Women's Aid schemes for which there is no substantial prospect of the sponsoring local authority subsuming the scheme within its own main programme and alternative sources of funding are not readily available. In these cases, however, the additional period of support will be the final one, after which the sponsoring local authority or other agency will be expected to take over full financial responsibility.
The programme recognises the special needs of new enterprise zones and therefore there is a provision of £400,000 in the allocation for Delyn borough council specifically to accelerate development of the new enterprise zone at Flint. When I have taken a decision on the designation of a third enterprise zone, I shall consider the need for consequent urban programme support.
I referred to the normal urban programme. The House will be aware that this year the Government have introduced a highly imaginative scheme to trigger private investment in rundown urban areas. Urban development grant is aimed at stimulating worthwhile schemes, which would not otherwise go ahead. Welsh local authorities and private developers were invited to put in competitive bids last autumn. In all, 50 bids were received, which have been carefully assessed. In this process I have taken advice from experts outside my Department, including private sector representatives. I am very grateful for their help. Our assessment has shown that 12 schemes might be suitable to start in 1983–84 if satisfactory conditions can be negotiated with the developers. Those schemes whould probably not have been viable at the present time without the favourable effect of UDG on their financing. Therefore, they represent real additions to development in needy urban areas and are likely to provide substantial long-term benefits. Furthermore, they will create much-needed employment in the construction industry—according to the applicants' estimate, about 1,200 jobs in the coming year and a similar number in the long term.
These schemes provide a major boost to the available resources by enouraging private sector investment. The total investment in the schemes that I am announcing today will be some £29 million. This would be triggered by a UDG input of up to £5·5 million. This represents a private to public ratio of 4:1. In other words, for every £1 of public money, there will be £4 from the private sector. The individual projects are extremely varied and imaginative. Details are available in the Library. They include town centre redevelopment in Rhyl, factory units in Connah's Quay, fiats in the Rhondda, market redevelopment in Aberdare, housing, hotel and office projects in Blaenau Gwent and housing schemes in Newport and Swansea. A

substantial grant is being offered to a workshop project in Cardiff which, incidentally, involves the restoration of the Maltings, a very fine group of existing buildings in the old industrial area. The two biggest grants go to major international hotel developments in Swansea and Cardiff.
In Swansea, Ocean Property Ltd. of Florida, proposes to build and run a major five-star international hotel in the maritime quarter at a total cost of some £10 million. A UDG input of up to £2 million is required to trigger that investment, which will be a key component in Swansea city's plan to convert the redundant south dock into a thriving new maritime quarter between the city centre and the Swansea bay foreshore. There can be little doubt that the maritime quarter as a whole and this hotel development in particular will provide new business, social and environmental dimensions for the city. They will undoubtedly also boost Swansea's reputation as a leisure and tourism centre.

Mr. Donald Anderson: Is the Secretary of State aware that there will be an utterly unreserved welome in Swansea for this imaginative venture and for the response of the Welsh Office to that rundown maritime area?

Mr. Edwards: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I hope that there will be equally enthusiastic support for what I have to say next.
The Cardiff project is equally important fm. South Wales. The grant that I have approved in principle of up to £2·5 million will, I hope, enable Commonwealth Holiday Inns of Canada Ltd. to proceed with the construction of a 200-bedroom Holiday Inn at a total cost of about £9 million. I agree with the view of the local authority and of the Wales Tourist Board that this is a key development for encouraging the arrival of international business and tourism and for fully developing and making use of the magnificent facilities that now exist in Cardiff—including, of course, the shopping centre, the new St. David's hall, the Welsh National Opera, the museums and the other attractions of the area. 1 believe that the project will be of great value to industrial and commercial development generally in South Wales, because it will certainly make it much easier for us to offer the range of services that major international companies now expect when seeking new locations. Indeed, I believe that the significance may be even greater than that. Those who know Cardiff will surely have been concerned, as I have, at the sharp contrast between the condition of the city south of the railway and that of the commercial and civic centres to the north. One sees in Cardiff many aspects of the problems of inner city decay and decline. Clearly, there is both vast waste and immense potential in the huge open areas that now exist between the railway and the sea. Much, of course, has already been done. During a recent visit I was struck by the way in which earlier projects—roads, renovation and new building—had already begun the process of rebirth. In my view, t le time is now ripe to take that process forward and to initiate measures which could, I believe, lead to the rebirth and rapid growth of south Cardiff. The Holiday Inn development and the improvement of the Hayes district which it would bring about would provide an essential link, carrying the process of renovation south as far as the railway line itself.
With the Hayes district improved, the opportunities to the south become immense. There can be few cities


anywhere, not initially planned to a pattern, that have such a natural cohesion between key parts. The core runs through Cathays Park and the civic centre, past the hub of commercial activity, the St. David's centre and concert hall through the Hayes and down Bute street to Bute town and the docks. The need is to re-establish the link between the present centre of activity and the old business centre around Mount Stuart square with its magnificent range of Victorian and Edwardian buildings, the Welsh maritime and industrial museum and the esplanades of south Bute town.
Because the need and the opportunities are so considerable and because I thought that the time was right, last autumn I asked my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to open discussions with local authorities and others; to investigate the possibilities and to report back to me. My hon. Friend has had a number of important meetings, has visited docklands developments elsewhere and has had valuable discussions with Associated British Ports, the new company that is taking over the role of the British Transport Docks Board.
I think it is clear from this initial review that what is now needed is to develop first the area that lies between the Hayes and Bute Town. New and important east-west roads are now opening up the area and a great deal of factory building and renovation has already begun the process. I have been able to make a contribution to what is going on through the £150,000 grant that I recently gave to the Welsh National Opera, which has enabled it to build an impressive rehearsal room in John street just to the south of the railway, while the Maltings development a little to the south-east will expand further on the basis of the proposed UDG to which I have referred. However, the fundamental feature of the area and the key to our future success must surely lie in the Bute east dock. The land that matters is in the area around the head of the dock and the broad belt down its western flank. This is the land that should provide the link between the present city centre and the sea.
I know the interest that south Glamorgan is taking in this area—indeed, it has recently prepared illustrative schemes of development. I, too, believe that the area, which has hitherto been designated for industrial development, could with sensitive development bring a mix of housing, offices, space for small modern industry and cultural and sporting facilities to this waterside site. Development on those lines, alongside a Bute street made worthy by imaginative redevelopment and tree planting would surely draw people and property south to a restored Bute town; to the east the old steelworks land offers ample opportunity for attracting industry large and small: to the west along Collingdon road there is already much commercial and industrial activity, while the WDA's reclamation site on the foreshore reveals immense scope for attractive residential development along the coast.
A great part of the land in question is owned by Associated British Ports. The Act that established the company gives it wide powers to exploit the commercial opportunities inherent in this land. I recently discussed these possibilities with Mr. Keith Stuart, the company's chairman and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has carried the discussions forward with senior management. Associated British Ports has told my hon. Friend that it is willing to consider seriously any proposals for this area

that will help realise the potential of the valuable property that it currently holds. While it certainly needs to retain adequate land for port-related activities, I understand that it shares our view that there is more than enough land available in the area for any future port operations and for the kind of mixed development that I have described.
The construction of the peripheral distributor road, together with the WDA's imaginative reclamation scheme, provides a superb site for development on the coast. Similar schemes in the United States have revealed what can be done by bringing housing and shops into a former industrial coastal site of this kind. I am glad to hear that a number of private developers are expressing interest in housing development in south Cardiff; and my belief is that high quality development could take place here which would be important in realising the potential of the area.
A good deal of preparatory work has been done. Local authorities, Associated British Ports and private developers are becoming involved in the discussions. Successful redevelopment on the scale and speed that I would like to see will require the fullest possible cooperation between all these bodies; it will particularly need the encouragement and enthusiastic support of the Cardiff city council and the South Glamorgan county council. The whole thing will require sensitive planning and, if the project is to succeed, will depend on a series of developments following one after the other, each one encouraging others to follow. As the local authorities have a central role, I am asking them to consider what I am now suggesting and to pursue discussions with ABP and potential developers. I very much hope that they will, as a matter of priority, bring forward some outline proposals so that we can consider them together before the summer.
While I can at this stage make no specific commitments, I have made it clear that I will consider sympathetically for inclusion in any future UDG programme any project which commands the support of the local and planning authorities, which attracts investment by the private sector, and which offers a good prospect of viability.

Mr. Alan Williams: I do not want the position to be misunderstood in any way. I welcome what UDG can achieve. Will the Minister confirm that the Government are about to introduce a special Bill, which will be passed through the House rapidly, to ensure that they have the proper legal basis upon which to dispense the public money that has been dispensed over the past few years?

Mr. Edwards: Some local authorities have raised the question of legal provisions. The Government have been considering those representations, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment will make a statement about the matter in the near future.

Mr. James Callaghan: What the Minister has said this afternoon is of great significance and importance. As he knows, south Glamorgan and the Cardiff city council have already begun to consider seriously how they can implement the proposals. I am sure that all Cardiff hon. Members, and certainly myself, will do their best to ensure that there is maximum co-operation between all the areas involved.
The Minister will be aware, as we all are, that the British Transport Docks Board was extremely miserly in


hoarding its land for far too long. Has he any assurance from the new body that it will behave reasonably and will let us have the land at a reasonable price?

Mr. Edwards: It was because I was anxious about this matter, and because I realised the crucial importance of resolving it, that I invited Mr. Stuart to meet me and, subsequently, asked my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to have detailed discussions with senior management. Everything that was said at the meetings encourages me to believe that we could go ahead in the way that I am sure both the right hon. Gentleman and I should like. I am grateful for what he has said.

Sir Raymond Gower: Does the statement by Associated British Ports constitute a definite change of policy? As my hon. Friend is aware, there is a great deal of former British Transport Docks Board land in Barry that the board has refused to release in previous years. Will it inure to the benefit of Cardiff, Newport, Swansea, Barry and all the other ports?

Mr. Edwards: Associated British Ports has reasonably and rightly said that large dockland development involves the use of a great deal of land for storage and other purposes. It does not want to inhibit its future ability to attract industrial development. However, in the discussions that I and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary have held, Associated British Ports has shown that it appreciates fully that there are many ways in which the best use could be made of the land, and that it is in the company's interest that it has a thriving and prosperous city around the docks. I am sure that that must be true in Barry as elsewhere. The company will therefore look sympathetically at any development that will improve the area's general prosperity and is therefore likely to inure to the company's benefit.
I have laid particular emphasis on these major schemes in Swansea and south Cardiff. Already in Swansea, there are further projects being prepared and under consideration which will build on the announcements that I have made this afternoon. I believe that the empty land and dereliction in the middle of our two greatest cities remain a blot which we should not be prepared to accept. It must also be right that we press on with the use of this available land in preference to taking more land from agriculture. However, I would, in conclusion, emphasise that my interest in urban renovation and in the involvement of the private sector is not in any way confined to Swansea and Cardiff. I hope the projects that I have announced today will be the forerunners of many other worthwhile developments in urban areas throughout Wales, increasingly supported and funded by private capital, which will not just remove the scars of the past but lay the foundations for a new prosperity.

Mr. Alec Jones: The Secretary of State made a remarkable speech. We shall now have to scurry to the Library to read the details of the schemes that he has announced. I do not want to disparage them. I should like to comment on his choice of Rhondda, Arfon and Anglesey as vanguard areas. I am sure that I am speaking for Arfon and Anglesey as well as for Rhondda in giving him my assurance that he will receive from those areas the co-operation on which the success of the schemes will depend.
I was fascinated by the proposed developments al Swansea and Cardiff, using urban development grants, and by what the right hon. Gentleman had to say about flats in Rhondda being financed by a similar method. I was genuinely pleased that he had decided to continue support for women's aid organisations, althought it is on only a two-year tapering off period. Those organisations are well worthy of our support.
As I listened to the right hon. Gentleman's speech I became more convinced that this Welsh day debate was likely to be the last one before the general election. His speech was like an election prospectus, with all the goodies at the front—

Mr. Hooson: An extremely good prospectus.

Mr. Jones: It is a good prospectus, but it is probably as false as the last one. However, none of the difficulties was in sight. All the difficulties and problems were kept away from view. If this is to be the last debate on Welsh affairs of this Parliament, the speech to which we have listened is an end-of-term report on the activities of the Secretary of State and his two parliamentary colleagues.
When I was a practising teacher I frequently had to write comments on end-of-term reports. I wondered what comments I would put on the report of the hon Member for Cardiff, North-West (Mr. Roberts). I carte to the conclusion that it would most suitably read, "Could have done better. Must pay more attention." In the report that I would draw up for the hon. Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts), my comment would be, "Must try a little harder. Should concentrate on his weaker subjects." In all honesty, it is much more difficult to be as generous to the Secretary of State. His end-of-term report would have to be labelled, "A total failure. Has not even tried."

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: But he has just received the warm congratulations of a number of hon. Members for what he has announced.

Mr. Jones: If the right hon. Gentleman will announce similar programmes every day, he will only be scratching at the problems in Wales and many of the problems of his own creation.
At the last election, the right hon. Gentleman in his election address to his people in Pembrokeshire said that he felt that the moment was coming when
I can do something effective for Wales and for Pembrokeshire.
The right hon. Gentleman has had an effect on Pembrokeshire—a devastating effect. Unemployment has risen from 2,558 in June 1979 to 7,577 in January 1983. The dole queue is three times longer than it was when the Conservative Government took office. No part of Wales has been spared from his efforts. He has beer equally effective, or ineffective, in all parts of Wales. Even according to the Government's fiddled figures, unemployment is high. The Secretary of State did not mention that there are 180,000 in the dole queue—one in six or our people.

Mr. John Morris: Not a word.

Mr. Jones: Indeed, not a word.
In eight of our travel-to-work areas unemployment is over 20 per cent. In 16 the unemployment figures are above the Welsh average. Despite what the Secretary of State announced today, many of those areas will be completely excluded from what he had to offer. However, I suppose that the unemployment figures are in accord with


the election address published by the hon. Member for Conway. His election address stated in bold letters, "More jobs—lower taxes." I doubt very much whether the hon. Gentleman would want to be so bold today.

Mr. John Morris: Where is he?

Mr. Jones: The hon. Gentleman apologised to me for his absence. He has to attend a Cabinet Committee meeting. I am sure that he will be sorry that he has missed what I shall say about him.
With regard to lower taxes, I shall take an example of a married couple with two children. If the earnings are three quarters of the national average, the family's tax bill has risen by 17 per cent. since 1978–79. If the same family was on national average earnings, its tax bill has risen by 14½ per cent. On twice average earnings, the tax bill for the same family has increased by 9½ per cent. If the family happened to be on five times the national earnings, the tax bill will have been cut by 6½ per cent. Therefore, presumably that is what the hon. Gentleman meant. He meant tax cuts to be intended only for the wealthiest in Wales. The hon. Gentleman has just come into the Chamber. Croeso. I was referring to his election address, in which he promised more jobs and lower taxes. I was saying that unless one earned five times the national average, one was now paying more taxes. I was saying that what the hon. Gentleman had in mind in his election address was that tax concessions were intended only for the wealthiest in Wales.
I do not know how many people are on five times the national average in Conway or Wales. One thing is certain. I guarantee that there is not one person in Rhondda earning that much. With the general election coming up, which is obviously having the effect of concentrating the mind wonderfully, come 15 March the Chancellor of the Exchequer will proceed to oil the machine prior to issuing another false prospectus for the general election.
I do not want to be unnecessarily unkind to the hon. Member for Conway. For the sake of greater accuracy I obtained a copy of his election address, which reads:
Every Conservative Government since the war has left office with more people at work than when it started.
The Secretary of State for Wales will have the rare distinction of being the man to break that record. We should put the record straight. When the Labour Government left office in 1979, 30,000 more people were at work than when we took office. Under this Secretary of State, at least 145,000 fewer people are in work than when he took office.
That is the remarkably effective contribution that the Secretary of State has sought to make today. It is no wonder that the feeling is growing that the Welsh Office under him is more concerned with foisting Government solutions on Wales than with fighting for Welsh interests. There have been massive increases in unemployment, which has risen by more than 100,000 in Wales and massive decreases in the numbers of work. We have lost more jobs than were created by regional policies in more than 20 years. That has been coupled with a fall in the level of the index of industrial production for Wales from 108·2 in the first quarter of 1979 to 93·7 in the third quarter of 1982. Despite all that, the Secretary of State has acquiesced throughout his period of office in policies that have compounded our problems in Wales.
Last Monday we had some exchanges about the Welsh Development Agency, and I am sure that the Secretary of State will readily acknowledge that, from its uneasy birth, through its somewhat struggling adolescence, and even through to its more robust manhood, I have supported and still support the WDA. Nevertheless, as I said on Monday, I was more than marginally disturbed to see the HTV programme on the subject of the agency last week. The allegation was made on the programme that 40 per cent. of its factories were empty and that it created only about 5,000 jobs. In my view, the WDA made a grave error of judgment in refusing to be represented on the programme, because it could have set the facts right. The Secretary of State confirmed this afternoon that only 15 per cent. of its factories were empty, and I understand that the WDA claims that it has created 13,000 jobs. Unfortunately, the programme was seen by thousands of people in Wales. The considerable difference between the figures demonstrates the need for an explanation of the true, up-to-date picture of the agency.
I do not blame the agency for many of the problems that beset it. The agency is only an instrument of the Government. It can succeed or fail only in so far as the Government's general economic policies succeed or fail. Earlier the Secretary of State repeated what he said on Monday, that 1·6 million sq ft of factory space had been allocated and let in 1981, and nearly 2 million sq ft last year. I do not dispute those figures, but I should like to know whether they are net figures. Do they take into account the factories that were let in 1981—and possibly last year—which have since closed for a variety of reasons? From my knowledge of my constituency of Rhondda, a factory at Wattstown, Automotive Engineering, and a factory at Ferndale, Webb, Son and Company, were built and taken over in the past two years, but they are no longer occupied by those firms. So we need a clearer understanding of the use of the words lettings, take-ups, and so on.

Mr. Alan Williams: May I give a current example of the misleading nature of the statistics which the Secretary of State used in giving just the gross lettings and ignoring those that have lost their tenants? Dragon Computers, which no doubt will be quoted as a successful WDA letting, moved to Kenfig to take a 60,000 sq ft factory, but has left Swansea with inducements from the Welsh Office and the WDA, leaving behind a factory of 70,000 sq ft. The net effect of that successful letting is that the WDA will now have 10,000 sq ft more on its book of empty factories than previously.

Mr. Jones: I thank my right hon. Friend for that information. If we are to assess the effectiveness of the agency and the range of regional policies, we must know more of the facts. If one looks at the reports of the agency, one finds that it is far from easy to understand which factories have been let and are still let, occupied and in production today. That is the key issue.
The Secretary of State said on Monday that he is shortly to meet the new chairman of the WDA to discuss its long-term strategy. I was therefore surprised to read the Western Mail's account, suggesting that that would lead to a major shake-up of the agency. Is the Secretary of State envisaging this major shake-up? I understood from him that he was not contemplating any change in guidelines, apart from the change in guidelines for derelict land, which were recently published.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: The right hon. Gentleman will sometimes have been surprised at headlines in the Western Mail. The reporter on that paper had no more information to go on than the statements that I made in the House. His interpretation was his alone, or that of his headline producer.

Mr. Jones: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, because I confess that when I listened to the Secretary of State, and read the questions afterwards, I could not read into them this demand or hope for a major shake-up. I hope that when the right hon. Gentleman meets the new chairman he will tell him what my right hon. Friend and I have said about factory take-ups by the WDA and assure him that Labour Members want a flourishing, active and more interventionist agency, and one that will tackle the most urgent problems in Wales.
If we want to measure the size of the problem and match it to what is being done in Wales, we could use—although not with 100 per cent. accuracy—the unemployment figures for the Welsh counties and compare them with the number of manufacturing jobs in the pipeline over the next three or four years. I realise that the figures are only for manufacturing and that there may be others. Over the next three to four years, in the county of Gwynedd there are 250 jobs in the pipeline in manufacturing industry, but already there are 14,000 unemployed. In Clywd, there are 3,500 jobs in the pipeline, but 26,000 unemployed. In Powys, there are 750 jobs in the pipeline and 4,000 unemployed. In Dyfed there are 350 jobs in the pipeline and 20,000 unemployed. In mid-Glamorgan, my own county, there are 2,100 jobs in the pipeline, but 34,000 unemployed. In west Glamorgan there are 1,000 jobs in the pipeline, and 28,000 unemployed. In south Glamorgan there are 950 jobs in the pipeline, and 25,000 unemployed. In Gwent there are 6,100 jobs in the pipeline, but 31,000 unemployed.
I suggest that that picture of Wales today is very different from the picture that was painted by the Secretary of State in his opening remarks. I accept that those figures are for manufacturing jobs, but, as we all know, the development of service industries has a vital role to play, particularly in certain parts of Wales. The Secretary of State said that in his view the present guidelines give the Welsh Development Agency sufficient flexibility in aiding service industries. I genuinely hope that when the Minister winds up the debate he will give us more details of how this flexibility is working and say to what extent aid can be given to service industries, both by the WDA and by the Development Board for Rural Wales.
We must also take into account the thousands of jobs in local authorities that have disappeared in the past year. The last Conservative election manifesto for Wales said:
We shall seek to enlarge the responsibility of local authorities".
That enlargement of responsibility, in practice, has left local authorities with the responsibility only of spending less and less, cutting more and more, and avoiding the nightmares associated with close-ending and holdback.
Let us consider what the Secretary of State has done for local authorities in the past four years. In each successive year the Government share of rate support grant has been reduced and the burden on the ratepayers increased. The right hon. Gentleman has nearly halved domestic rate relief, and that has added to the burden on the domestic ratepayers. He has virtually removed local authority

representation from the Welsh water authority, which was the only democratic component in that authori:y. He has forced cuts in local authority staff of about 8,030. So we come, fortunately and thankfully, to the end of his four years, although their effect will last for a long time.
As a consequence of what the Secretary of State has done to local government, fewer houses were completed in Wales last year than in any year since 1947, and that is a pretty miserable level. Instead of taking advantage of falling school rolls to improve educational standards and the opportunities for young people, the number of teachers and lecturers in posts has been reduced by about 2,000. County council social services departments are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain, let alone improve, the services for increasing numbers of old, handicapped and disabled persons, now thankfully living longer, and for the increasing numbers of children now kept out of long-stay hospitals and living in the community. When we compare the need there and the way that it has been handled with the over-generous handouts to the wealthiest members of our society — five times the national average — it confirms that the Government motto must surely be that greed not need is their concern.
If this is an end-of-term report—and it is a miserable one—where on earth do we go from here? What would another term of office for the Government mean to Wales? What of our basic industries? That subject was dented this week and I do not propose to deal with it in detail. B at one thing is certain, and that is that investment in the South Wales coal industry has declined, particularly when one compares that with other coalfields in the United Kingdom. We discussed the liquefacation plant at Point of Ayr. If that is to continue at all, it will be on a much reduced scale. Welsh miners and their families can have no assurance from the Government about their industry.
Steel imports are flooding in—67 per cent. from the EC. After suffering a 50 per cent. reduction in its work force, can BSC in Wales give any guarantee to its present work force? Last Monday the Secretary of State confirmed that unemployment in Newport—one of our major steel towns—was 18·8 per cent. He told my hon. Friend the Member for Newport (Mr. Hughes) that Newport in Gwent was an area for which he had many exciting projects in mind, and I hope that he has. But the following day British Alcan announced 350 redundancies at Rogerstone. That is the background for the future.
The hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Best) gave certain assurances about the Serpell report even before the House debated it. Option A has been rejected, but that is not sufficient for Wales, where most of the other options are equally offensive. It is not good enough to say that we must wait until after the election before we know which of those other options will be implemented. I must tell the Secretary of State—fortunately he will not be here to worry about it—that when the Serpell and other reports say that railway lines can be withdrawn because they can always be replaced by bus services, our experience is that that just is not true. Bus services are seldom reliable and seldom last any length of time. People in south Wales were conned some years ago to accept closures by the promise of adequate bus services, but not one of those bus services is still in existence.
In many parts of Wales people are concerned about the future of telecommunications. After the general election the Government propose to sell off 51 per cent. of British Telecom. Last year British Telecom, in its service to


telephone users in Wales and the Marches—which still strikes me as an odd phrase—lost £20 million. If 51 per cent. of British Telecom is sold off, does anyone believe that a private company, the raison d'etre of which is to make a profit, is likely to continue that loss-making service which is so essential, particularly in remoter rural areas? Can the Secretary of State or any member of the Government guarantee that the existing public telephone service will continue to provide the essential means of communication, particularly in parts of rural Wales?

Sir Raymond Gower: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the state of Georgia, which is by no means a rich state in American terms, the telephone service is incomparably better than anything in the United Kingdom and is run by a private company? The same is true in Canada where some areas are sparsely populated. The telephone service there is far superior to anything that we have here.

Mr. Jones: If the hon. Gentleman is so content with those services, it should be relatively easy for the Government to say that the new private company will give us the sort of services that we want. I have never been to Georgia and could not say whether that is the case.

Mr. Wigley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a Congressional Committee of the United States has been reviewing the effects of trends in United States telecommunications and that the cost for rural areas has escalated out of all proportion and it is a real worry whether services can be maintained?

Mr. Jones: That is the fear that has been expressed to me by people from rural Wales. If the sell-off takes place, either prices will rise and put the services out of people's reach, or the services will be cut off. I am not an expert on American affairs. I have enough trouble looking after Welsh affairs.
About 98 per cent. of the people in Wales use the NHS and no other health service. As far as they are concerned it is the only health service and that is why we are rightly anxious about its future. There were some flurries in the dovecote a few months ago and the Prime Minister gave the assurance that the NHS was safe in the Government's hands. I am not so sure now about in whose hands the NHS is or will be.
I have here the minutes of an inaugural meeting of the All-Wales management efficiency group, held at Preswylfa, Mold, on Thursday 7 October 1982 at 11 am. The chairman is the chairman of the Clwyd health authority, appointed by the Secretary of State. The group consists of three officers from the west Glamorgan health authority, one officer from the Clwyd health authority and three civil servants. Who appointed those people and to whom will they be responsible? Are their reports to be published so that we can all know what they are proposing to do? That group has already agreed that the current membership should remain for a period of two years—that is looking after themselves.
There then appears a very interesting phrase:
Members favoured a radical approach to their tasks.
I am not sure what that means, but when one turns the page one sees that the sort of tasks that are considered are land disposal, privatisation of the Welsh health technical services organisation, privatisation of laundry services—

[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—privatisation of cleaning services—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—and the privatisation of catering services—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Those are political matters and ought not to be discussed in some secret group in which civil servants are expected to play a role. Those are areas into which civil servants do not fit easily. I hope that when the Minister replies to the debate he will draw aside the veil of secrecy surrounding that group so that we may all know the Government's plans for the NHS in Wales.

Mr. Ioan Evans: My right hon. Friend referred to an inaugural meeting. Who inaugurated the meeting? Why is it that some of the large health authorities which have chairmen of a different political persuasion may not have been invited to the meeting? It was not just a secret meeting. It seems to be a small political caucus.

Mr. Jones: As I was not responsible for calling the meeting, I suggest that my hon. Friend addresses his remarks to the Secretary of State for Wales, who I am sure will explain exactly why these peoiple were appointed and what he expects to get out of it.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: I should like to put the right hon. Gentleman quickly out of his misery. This is one of a number of groups appointed by the chairmen to report back to the chairmen and then to submit their reports— [HON. MEMBERS: "Which chairmen?"] — the chairmen of the health authorities — for consideration by the health authorities. It will be, as it always is, for health authorities to take decisions about what they do in their individual areas.

Mr. Jones: I wish to press the Secretary of State further on this matter. Is he now saying that it was Mr. E. M. W. Griffith, the chairman of Clwyd health authority, who decided to gather these people together, who picked them himself and then set about a programme of activities without any reference to the Secretary of State for Wales, who is responsible for health matters in Wales? Does that mean that any area health authority chairman can set up his own private committee? We could have the chairman of the mid-Glamorgan area health authority setting up his own investigation into whether we should close all private hospitals in Wales and remove all pay beds. Would that be acceptable to the right hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Edwards: The chairmen of the health authorities in Wales appoint their own committees and appointed these committees. They were not appointed by me. They have a number of working parties which are reporting on a number of aspects of the Health Service. Their reports, when considered by the chairmen collectively, are then considered by individual health authorities. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that there is nothing obscure or secret about it. They are not appointed or selected by me.

Mr. Anderson: rose—

Mr. Jones: I shall give way to my hon. Friend in a moment. I hope that the House will not blame me for taking up too much time, but I have had many interventions in my speech.
My hon. Friends are keen to have an answer on this matter, and presumably the Secretary of State is receiving an answer now. If everything is as innocent as the Secretary of State says, where did the three civil servants on the committee, out of the eight members, including the chairman, come from? Were they self-elected? Did the


civil servants decide to join the committee? How did they get on to the committee? Will the Secretary of State allow his civil servants to sit on any such committee set up by any chairman to discuss any subject that they might think suitable?

Mr. Edwards: The meetings of the chairmen on this and a whole range of other issues concerning the management of the Health Service are attended by officials of my Department. I imagine that meetings of health authorities were attended by members of the Department under my predecessor. The arrangements under my predecessor were that there were carefully structured meetings every month, chaired by a Welsh Office Minister. Now the chairmen frequently meet to discuss their plans collectively. Officials sit in on these meetings. Minutes are circulated generally and there is nothing secret about them. The operating decisions on the ground are taken by the health authorities, which consider the reports and recommendations put to them.

Mr. Jones: The right hon. Gentleman is missing the point. It is not a meeting of an area health authority. This is a hybrid or mongrel organisation consisting of members from various health authorities, with three Welsh Office civil servants who are not just sitting there taking notes. Welsh Office colleagues were asked to regard themselves as equal members, taking a full part in the development of projects and working groups. That is not an appropriate role for civil servants to play, especially when one takes into account the high political content of some of the subjects that we have discussed.
I wish now to move away from health, having stirred up that debate.
We referred to jobcentres in a debate in the Welsh Grand Committee some time ago. Some decisions have now been made and announced, but only some. The Government have decided to close four jobcentres in Wales, at Bethesda, Dolgellau, Glyn-neath and Llandovery, and to cut back the hours of opening at two others, at Beaumaris and Penygroes. The future of the two being cut back, as well as 11 others, is to be reviewed again later this year. That means that the threat of closure has not been lifted from those 13 offices.
In addition, a further 16 offices are to be reviewed. The total number of jobcentres threatened in Wales is not four, as has been announced, but 33. Once again Wales is disproportionately affected. Although overall, throughout the country, 125 jobcentres are being reviewed, 26 per cent. are in Wales. More than one third of the jobcentres in Wales are under threat. The majority of them are in mid-Wales and north Wales, so the effect on those areas is the greater.
When those four jobcentres are closed, the cheapest return fare to the nearest alternative centre will be 77p. For the others, the return fare is more than £1. The unemployed in Dolgellau will have to pay £1·70, return, to visit the jobcentre at Barmouth. The Government do not realise that for the unemployed, particularly for the long-term unemployed, these fares are a major deterrent to their visiting a jobcentre, which is the only place which gives them a chance of a job.
Further blessings—or curses as I prefer to call them—are likely to lie in store as a result of discussions taking place at present. The closure of tax offices at Carmarthen, Merthyr, Neath, Rhyl, Pontypridd and

Pontypool will cost about 400 jobs. In addition there will be a far inferior service for those already bedevilled with income tax problems. There are threats to the Property Services Agency, with proposed closures of offices at Cardiff, Haverfordwest and Colwyn, with the loss of 160 jobs. If the Government proceed to scrap th.:, present regional set-up, with a headquarters at Cardiff, a further 200 jobs could go.
Many of those matters are now being discussed, but the Secretary of State was extremely coy about taking us into his confidence. If they are only fears which can be dispelled, I am sure that the Minister, when he replies to the debate, will guarantee that our fears are completely unreal.
The major problem facing us in Wales today is the level of unemployment, despite the fact that that issue was completely neglected by the Secretary of State. The problem is not only of unemployment, but of the length of time that many of our people have been unemployed. Many of them see no hope or prospect for the future. That is a dreadful indictment of any Government.
I sometimes feel that we talk in large numbers—180,000 unemployed, 17·4 per cent. unemployed, or one in six unemployed—and that sometimes we become hypnotised by the numbers into forgetting that behind them there are human beings and that underneath it all lies a deep human tragedy.
Last week I spoke to a young 18-year-old man from my constituency, Darryn Walker. Apart from being on one youth opportunities scheme, he has not worked since he left school. The Government have failed to channel their energies into dealing with that sort of problem. Because the Secretary of State has failed not only Darryn Walker, but many thousands like him, he has failed Wales and stands condemned as the most ineffective Secretary of State that Wales has ever had the misfortune to know.

6 pm

Sir Raymond Gower: The right hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones) made a quite legitimate party speech and we should not complain about that.

Mr. Anderson: And a good one.

Sir Raymond Gower: I am not sure that it was all that good. He appeared to think that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his colleagues in the Welsh Office should work independently of world events and that they should be able to work quite efficiently with complete disregard for what is happening in Europe and in isolation even from the rest of the United Kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman thinks that, no matter how bad things are in the rest of the world or in the United Kingdom, an efficient Secretary of State can succeed in isolation and proceed just as effectively as when Europe, the United Kingdom and the whole world were prosperous. That is a remarkable point of view. Fortunately, the right hon. Gentleman has not been a Secretary of State. If he had been, he might not have spoken in those terms.

Mr. Hooson: Does not my hon. Friend agree that within the last week both Germany and Belgium have announced record unemployment figures, reaching, in the case of Germany, 2·5 million?

Sir Raymond Gower: Another thing that amazed me was that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues seemed to think, although they regarded such issues with


among the Conservative party and presumably among other parties. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that all of us are profoundly concerned about unemployment. During Welsh Question Time last Monday I referred to it as the "evil" of unemployment. It certainly is an evil. We must check it and then eradicate it as soon as we can. That is no easy task, although the right hon. Gentleman gave the impression that it could be done quite easily by a change of policy.
In all changing and progressive industrial societies some people will be unemployed. If new industries emerge and others disappear, that is concomitant with a progressive industrial society. However, as the right hon. Gentleman reminded us, Welsh unemployment now stands at over 180,000 and is higher than 17 per cent. It is infinitely worse than might be expected of such a society and it is, of course, serious. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will recall that in all countries with such problems, opposition parties tend to put all the blame on the incumbent Government. That was probably the reason for the defeat of Giscard d'Estaing in France and probably one of the chief reasons for the fall of Helmut Schmidt's Government in Germany. In every such country, the incumbent Government take the blame. Irish history suggests that even if a Government have been in office for only a few weeks, they get the blame.
That excessive unemployment is not a purely Welsh phenomenon and not solely a Welsh or even British disease is shown by the OECD figures for standard unemployment at the beginning of 1983. I hope that the right hon. Member for Rhondda will take account of the fact that unemployment in the United Kingdom is 3,224,000 or 13·8 per cent. and in Wales, 180,664 or 17·5 per cent. In Holland, which is a small country, unemployment is 644,200—a percentage, admittedly lower than in the United Kingdom, of 12 per cent. However, it is only 1·7 per cent. lower than in the United Kingdom.
In the United States of America, which is a large federal country, unemployment stands at 11,400,000 or 10·4 per cent., which is again a very high figure. In Ireland, which is a very small country, unemployment stands at 179,900, or 14·7 per cent. In a centralised country such as France, unemployment stands at 2,131,400, which again is nearly 10 per cent. Even West Germany, which has been so successful since the last war, has 2,223,300 people unemployed or 8·4 per cent. That is a lower percentage, but it takes little account of the many thousands, or—I believe—millions of guest workers, many of whom have been repatriated.
The world recession affects the industrial West and the countries of the Third world, and has had serious repercussions on the Communist countries of eastern Europe. The paramount need is for urgent international co-operation and action at the earliest possible date. Can we hope for that after the economic summit to be held in Williamsburg, in the United States of America, in May this year? Previous summits have been very disappointing. Their results have not been what the world sought. However, the international community cannot long afford failure and certainly cannot afford it this time. I fear that protectionism, which has been advocated by some siren voices from the Opposition, cannot provide a cure for the problems of the industrial West, or of any other part of the

world. The economic summit must surely find remedies for fluctuating exchange rates and must seek some liberalisation of trade.
I do not wish to overstate the case, but I thought that there was something brighter and more hopeful in the latest CBI survey. It gives some ground for cautious encouragement. It reports that Welsh firms expect increasing orders, some rise in exports and more expenditure on plant and machinery in the months ahead. It also reports that slightly fewer firms in Wales now appear to be working below capacity. I would not overstate that, but it shows that at least there is some silver lining.
Despite what has been said in criticism—I am not sure to what extent the right hon. Member for Rhondda was criticising the Welsh Development Agency—I praise, once again, the exertions of the WDA and of the industrial department of the Welsh office. I should also like to extoll what has been done for many years, under somewhat difficult conditions by the Development Corporation of Wales, which is to be replaced by a new body. I am sure that all hon. Members hope that that new body—announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—will take over successfully the task of bringing inward investment into the Principality. Generally, I approve of the priority that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State gives to improving the infrastructure. In that context, communications seem to demand a high ranking. Many of us were no doubt encouraged by what my right hon. Friend said about the M4 and the north Wales coastal expressway. As soon as those projects are nearing completion, I hope that further consideration will be given to speeding up the northward extension of the Cardiff to Abercynon road. My right hon. Friend announced some slight extension today—[Interruption.] Perhaps it was considerable, but I hope that we shall soon hear that it is to be extended into Merthyr and beyond. That is very important. Those hon. Members who represent valley communities will no doubt agree that the northward extension of that road is vital.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: It is indeed vital. Perhaps my hon. Friend is not aware that the work has actually started and that we are pressing on with this important project with all speed.

Sir Raymond Gower: I am very pleased to hear that.
My right hon. Friend referred to certain bypasses. This should be regarded as a vital matter in the months ahead as they are very necessary in some places which have not yet even been considered.
I should like to make a special plea to my right hon. Friend about the proposal of Welsh-Irish Ferries Ltd. to institute a new freight-only ferry service between Barry dock and Cork. The promoters have been reassured by a feasibility study and have applied to the Welsh Office and to the WDA for support and grants, since when I have been in correspondence with my right hon. Friend and with the WDA. I was informed this morning that a grant had been approved by the Secretary of State, though which Secretary of State was not specified. I assume it must be my right hon. Friend. This is encouraging. I hope that both the Welsh Office and the WDA will do all they can to support this venture
A new project of this kind will need all available help. It could not have been contemplated earlier. It was not


pressed with any optimism until it became clear that the ferry service between Pembrokeshire and Ireland could not survive. My right hon. Friend will be aware that the docks at Barry and local industry have suffered in recent years. This new ferry service will be a useful addition to the
Mr. Anderson: Does the hon. Member not agree that one must be a little wary of this proposal since B and I first had public funds to locate at Swansea for the ferryport there for the Swansea-Cork ferry? It then moved to Pembroke for the same route, obtaining at that time at least £4 million of public money from European funds for the venture. Anyone who is concerned about the public purse, therefore, must be pretty wary about additional public funds for this new project.

Sir Raymond Gower: I understand that this has been the subject of a full feasibility study.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: Perhaps I can tell my hon. Friend that the major B and I service at Pembroke to Rosslare continues. It is only one particular service to Cork which has been discontinued. Clearly, he has not received the letter I have written to him, confirming that a grant has been given to the new service. I wish it well but it will be operating over an extended sea route and it will obviously have to strive very hard to achieve the viability to which the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) has referred.

Sir Raymond Gower: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that information. I accept the hon. Gentleman's statement that we need to exercise care in matters of this kind. Nevertheless, it is a fact that there was originally a service between Ireland and Barry which ran quite successfully for some years. it was only the difficulties at the beginning of the economic recession which helped to bring about its failure.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to anxiety in Wales about the railways. I quite understand the importance of that. I fully appreciate that the report merely posed certain alternatives and diagnosed the respective consequences. I put it to my right hon. Friend, however, that a lack of information about our reaction to this report could be the foundation for exaggerated fears and sometimes exaggerated suggestions. There is a need for a clearer statement about this in the near future—not, of course, from my right hon. Friend but, I hope, from a Minister. I would certainly wish one of the suggestions to be rejected out of hand, that which involved reductions in maintenance and safety, which I regard as completely unacceptable.
I acknowledge that the problems of meeting the industrial needs of Wales against a background of world difficulty are extremely hard. Nevertheless, there are hopeful signs. One of the most significant is that, although Wales has suffered badly, it has not suffered quite as badly as parts of the United Kingdom which were formerly much more prosperous than Wales. For example, even the very prosperous industrial west midlands now has unemployment figures comparable with those in the Principality. Thus, our recession, based on a much worse foundation, has not gone as far as that in some more prosperous parts of the country.
The second encouraging feature, already referred to by my right hon. Friend, is the readiness of numerous companies to come to Wales from many parts of the world and other parts of the United Kingdom, and the continued

diversification of our industry. We cannot deny that we have suffered heavily from the decline of the old traditional industries but in the long term it is preferable that we diversify. I would not wish to see merely a rebuilding of the old industries without our industrial scope as a whole being considerably enlarged.
I do not, therefore, believe that the final words of the right hon. Member for Rhondda were at all justified, when he said that the present Administration had been completely unsuccessful in Welsh terms. Set against the background of what has been happening in the world at large, it is remarkable how well the problem in Wales has been contained, despite the very serious problems of one or two major industries.
There are still hopeful signs. I do not believe we should be completely despondent. There are difficulties ahead, but they should not be regarded as insurmountable.

Mr. John Morris: We have heard a remarkable speech this afternoon from the Secretary of State. I have heard of people turning the other cheek before they are attacked but he has managed to do a juggling trick, turning both cheeks at one and the same time. To make a speech on Welsh day, which is traditionally regarded as a "state of the nation" speech for Wales, and to make not one mention of the tragedy and misery of unemployment is remarkable. There were, of course, passing references to it, but it should have been the cardinal part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. To ignore the reality of life in the Principality was remarkable.
It was also a conciliatory speech. The right hon. Gentleman praised all that had been done before him. I was blushing from the praise accorded to roads, hospitals, factory buildings, the Development Board for Rural Wales, the WDA and all the good work which had been carried out. Good for him, but much more is needed. Let me not be misinterpreted, however. I very much welcome what he announced for Swansea and Cardiff. I have lived and practised in Swansea and over the last 25 years have spent a great deal of time in Cardiff and I happen to know a little of the real needs of the urban areas of those two cities. What the right hon. Gentleman announced will be very welcome indeed but it will meet only a fractio of the needs of Wales. If that is all the Secretary of State has to offer, in what will go down as a two-hotel speech, A is not enough, not half enough, not a quarter enough, for the real problems in Wales today.
There is only one thing more painful than re-reacting one's own speeches, and that is reading those of one's opponents. I have gone to the trouble of reading again the first speech made by the Secretary of State after he took office. It makes miserable reading. It must make particularly miserable reading for the Secretary of State himself. What has the right hon. Gentleman to show for his four years of steering the ship of state in Wales? In what sphere can he claim that he has been successful? The right hon. Gentleman must be the most miserable man in Wales as he looks back upon those wasted years.
Soon, the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues will be approaching the electors of Wales, and they will have to account for their stewardship. For a time after taking office, they were able to blame their predecessors. When that began to pall, all that remained was world conditions. According to the Government, they are never wrong They


have carried out the tenets of their mistress that "there is no alternative". Like the words of the national anthem of west Wales, Dai bach y sowldiwr, their view is that they have always been in step. Everyone else has been out of step.
In every field of endeavour, except one, the Government have fallen flat on their faces. The Secretary of State pins to his chest the proud badge of increased lettings of factories built by the WDA despite the recession. That is good. It is a proud record, about which the right hon. Gentleman is right to feel pleased. He was right to commend the previous Labour Government who were set on a rising course of buildings in preparation, of land acquisition and of a land bank. During our period of office, lettings were breaking records year after year. That progress has been maintained and improved. I commend the Secretary of State. I am pleased that, in a period of adversity, the level of activity has been maintained.
I must return, however, to the question that I posed last year. How many new jobs have come to Wales from WDA factories since 1979? Indeed, how many new jobs have come from anywhere? We hear about jobs in the pipeline. How many actually materialise on the ground? It is jobs that count. In an outstanding speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones) recounted the scale of unemployment in each area. My right hon. Friend accorded unemployment the wide priority that the Secretary of State did not. In the Port Talbot travel-to-work area, over 8,000 people have been unemployed for more than six months.
Over three years ago, £48 million was given to the steel areas and Cwmbran. I have tried over the months to discover how many jobs have resulted from this injection of money. According to a reply by the Under-Secretary of State on 22 November, 550 jobs had materialised in the Port Talbot travel-to-work area and 600 in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport (Mr. Hughes). I pressed the matter further. On 13 December, the Secretary of State said that the 550 consisted of 390 in Bridgend and 160 in Port Talbot. Those are the figures—a total of 550 jobs to meet the needs of over 8,000 people who are unemployed in the area.
That is the scale of the misery which the Secretary of State failed to appreciate or to accord priority to in his speech. From the fastness of his London office, he does not understand what is happening in Wales. Fortress Falklands may be the policy internationally for the Prime Minister. Fortress Gwydyr House, with the Secretary of State shutting his eyes to the reality of what is happening in Wales and almost totally ignoring the problem in his speech today, is an insult to every elector and citizen in Wales. I have tried to obtain in my area an increased build from the WDA above the mere nine factories at Baglan. The Secretary of State is right in saying that the provision over a wider area has to be taken into account. On that basis, however, one has to take account of unemployment in the Neath and Swansea travel-to-work areas. The miserable provisioning by the Govenment can never hope to meet the needs.
I am sorry to say that there is little hope for my area so long as present policies are continued. Can the Secretary of State, in his quieter moments, as he looks at each area,

say honestly when he expects unemployment to come down? No one can make that prediction so long as the Government continue on their present course.
I wish to deal now with an area where there is hope. I was glad to hear from the Secretary of State for Industry on December 20 that the Government were discussing the importance of a new hot strip mill at Port Talbot. A few days previously, effusive congratulations had appeared in the Western Mail on the Secretary of State's great victory. Even the poor Secretary of State had to be congratulated on something. The right hon. Gentleman had obviously been trailing his coat to the media a few days before the announcement. Despite the words of the Secretary of State for Industry, we are still awaiting a firm decision.
The truth is that we cannot decide the matter for ourselves. It has to be discussed within the European Community. The project, I understand, needs the Community's approval. The deadline, I believe, runs out next week. Is it a good omen or a bad omen for Port Talbot that all this time is being taken to decide whether the project should go ahead?

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry made it clear that he would announce this decision with others on the corporate plan. My right hon. Friend hopes to announce those decisions on the corporate plan before the Easter recess.

Mr. Morris: That is not good enough.

Mr. Edwards: The announcement will include decisions on the Port Talbot investment.

Mr. Morris: I am glad to have that assurance. The right hon. Gentleman should know that a great deal of work has been done in Port Talbot to plan for the project. Months have been lost. The delay removes hope from people in my area. I hope that the delay is not an adverse omen of the EC's attitude.
In the Secretary of State's first speech after taking office he stated that there was too much interference by the Welsh Office in local government, and that he would reduce the number of circulars. He may have done so. I warned him at the time that it was resources, not circulars, that local authorities were concerned about. The right hon. Gentleman has throttled local government in Wales. He has taken the word "local" out of local government. This has been the most centralised Government of all time.
In his first speech, the Secretary of State said that when he opened his brief on the Sunday morning he saw that he had inherited massive problems. One of the problems was an unemployment figure of 83,000. That is, of course, far too high, but Wales would be happy indeed if the figure was still 83,000 and not 180,000. The figure of 83,000 was a reduction from a previous level of 101,000. More people then were actually employed in Wales than at any time in our history. Since the right hon. Gentleman has taken office, unemployment has doubled and the numbers in work have gone down substantially.
The Secretary of State went on to say that he recognised the importance of coal and that he was going to make an early visit to the coalfields. How many pits has he visited since he took office? What does he know of the problems of the industry? My hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell) asked him how many factories, how many service industries and how many extracting industries he had visited. The Secretary of State was very coy in his


reply, and said that he had been to a large number of industrial premises, industrial estates and service industries, but said no word about the extracting industries. Where is this visit to the coalfield? Has he been to see the fears and the needs of the coal industry?
The Secretary of State went on to say that the first priority of the Government was to revive the economy, to stimulate enterprise and job creation, and to encourage small firms. Where has the economy been stimulated? Where is the job creation? Where is the revival and stimulation of enterprise? How exactly have small firms, that have increasingly gone bankrupt all over Wales, been helped?
The Secretary of State said that housing was important to Wales. All I can say is that he qualifies for the booby prize for house building. As an arch-monetarist—we recall the speeches that the Secretary of State made in the early days of the Government from one end of Pembrokeshire to another—and a chief Government apologist in Wales, he must feel pretty sick at the desolation he now sees from one end of Wales to the other.
I quote a translation of one of our most eminent dramatists:
My country of Wales is a vineyard
Given into my safe keeping
To be handed down to my children and my children's children As an inheritance for all time.
What an inheritance․ What animal-like devastation has taken place from Anglesey to Gwent. Can the Secretary of State or any of his colleagues be proud of what they have done to Wales, my country, in the past few years?

Mr. Geraint Howells: We are all well aware that there is an election pending within the next 12 or 18 months, but we know, too, that in Wales over 180,000 people are unemployed. Although the Secretary of State has made promises today—I must confess that his presentation was good—I fear that in 12 months' time over 200,000 will be out of work.
The old saying is that there is none so deaf as he who will not hear. All along, the Government have been deaf to the advice of those who have the best interests of Wales at heart. They have ignored valuable advice on how the problems could be alleviated. Instead, the same platitudes are heard repeatedly, while the recession deepens and the unemployment figures rise. Many of our constituents ask us, as their Members of Parliament, "Will my job be the next to go?" Thousands in Wales are afraid that their jobs will be next.
However, perhaps today the Government will come to terms with the problems and take the advice offered to them. We can only hope. Plenty of advice has and will be given today, and I shall make my contribution. I hope that the Secretary of State and others will heed my advice.
It is recognised that one of our greatest problems today, and what causes most fear among the electorate, is unemployment. It has been created by the disintegration of our basic industries, followed in turn by failure of businesses large and small. This has created a climate of fear that eats into the very fabric of our society.
I wish to concentrate largely on my constituency of Cardigan, which is in many ways typical of the rural constituencies and where, although there has never been any heavy industry, none the less the tourist trade and small businesses have suffered as a result of the depression that affects the rest of the country.
The Secretary of State is well aware of the depressing state of affairs that prevails in places such as the vale of Teifi, where unemployment is extremely high, and there seems to be no relief in sight unless the Government take positive steps to tackle the problem.
My party and the alliance believe that one way to attack unemployment is to use the available work force to improve communications by road and rail and to improve facilities at all levels. By this means we can attract further industry into the area to take advantage of the advance factories set up under the Development Board for Rural Wales and the Welsh Development Agency.
The Secretary of State referred to the road improvement schemes to be carried out within the next five years. Perhaps he forgot, or perhaps the Under-Secretary will clarify, the position of the Cardigan bypass. When will the bypass be started and what improvements will be made to the bypass already at Aberystwyth? I hope that the Secretary of State will give us some information on this important issue later.
Instead of this kind of investment, however, we have been horrified to learn of the Serpell proposals, which I trust the Secretary of State will reject out of hand. The Government who accept these proposals will commit political suicide. Any further cuts in our rail service would add to the serious fears of people in our part of the world. They would threaten us with even greater isolation. I would much rather hear confirmation from the Secretary of State of a plan to extend the inter-city service from London to Shrewsbury through to Aberystwyth, with improved track and rolling stock provided. This would, I feel certain, bring great benefit to the area. Can the Under-Secretary tell us what are the latest developments on this scheme?
More money could well be spent on roads in, and leading to, west and mid-Wales. This again would help bring work to the area, while at the same time providing better facilities for industrial concerns. Wales as a whole would derive great benefit from a trunk road between Wrexham, Deeside and Cardiff, running through mid-Wales.
A great deal remains to be done in improving sewerage schemes in rural Wales. In my constituency alone, many communities are still without mains drainage. Another project that has hung fire in Ceredigion is the development of the second phase of the Bronglais hospital. This has been put back year after year to the detriment of the health service in this area. If my memory serves me right, Conservative Administrations in the 1960s and 1970s promised that the second phase of Bronglais hospital would be built within five years. That promise has not been kept. I trust that the Under-Secretary of State will have some good news to give the people of Aberystwyth tonight.
My constituents are worried about the policy that dictates the closure of small village schools. That policy is wrong. In many cases those schools provide the best possible education for the pupils and give them a start in life scarcely equalled elsewhere. The right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) went to a small primary school in Aberffrwd. There were fewer than 10 pupils in those days. Since those days at Aberffrwd he has gone a long way. I am sure that he is indebted to that local school in Ceredigion.

Mr. John Morris: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but he has got the school wrong. I went to Capel Bangor.

Mr. Howells: I thought that the right hon. and learned Gentleman went to Aberffrwd for a period. The small schools should be allowed to remain. In addition, we should be looking towards developing better nursery education in every community and finding sufficient facilities and small buildings for them to be held.
There are two university colleges in Ceredigion. Apart from providing first-class education for students from all parts of Wales and the United Kingdom, they bring substantial revenue to the area and provide employment for local people. The part that they play in the community is of the utmost importance, and I am alarmed that Government policy may well affect them adversely. We have seen savage cuts in their budgets, and now we learn with trepidation of a loan scheme for students.
The University College of Wales was established with the pennies of working people throughout Wales. It has always been proud of its record of educating the sons and daughters of people from all walks of life, regardless of their ability to pay. It is feared that the loan scheme will deter many students from poor homes from venturing into an academic career. That, surely, would be a great loss to the nation as a whole.
I am most interested in the DBRW's latest scheme to encourage harbour developments in New Quay and Aberystwyth. I should be glad if the Minister could furnish me with further details as to when the scheme will start. Will local labour be employed, and what long-term benefits does he see arising from those developments? I congratulate the Development Board for Rural Wales on its far-sighted policy, and urge the Government to give it more financial assistance, if at all possible, because of the excellent work that it has done during the past few years.

Dr. Roger Thomas: Does the hon. Member realise that if the boundary commission recommendations come into effect, part of his new constituency will lie outside the remit of the Development Board for Rural Wales? How will he then be placed?

Mr. Howells: I am delighted that the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Dr. Thomas) said that the new proposals will affect my constituency. If he is saying that the Liberals will win the new seat of Ceredigion and North Pembroke, he has conceded defeat already.
I was very disappointed that neither the Secretary of State nor even the Opposition spokesman, the right hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones), mentioned agriculture. We must be fed whether we are employed or unemployed. Agriculture has done excellent work during the past two or three decades to feed the people of this country. It is one of the largest industries in my constituency.
I conclude by referring to this important aspect of rural life and economy. Agriculture, as we are all aware, has made great strides in recent years. Despite many faults in the system, it has prospered under the common agricultural policy. We are celebrating our tenth anniversary of membership this year. I hope that during canvassing for the next election hon. Members will urge the electorate that it is wiser for us to stay in Europe than to be outside. There is scope for improvement and revision

in the common agricultural policy. I believe that it would be foolish to withdraw from the European Community at this stage.
My great disappointment with the Government's approach to Welsh agriculture has been their refusal to commit themselves to financial aid to marginal land, an injustice that has rankled with farmers for a long time. I hope that the Minister will come clean tonight and commit the Government to giving financial aid to hill farmers once the scheme and the proposals have returned from Brussels.
Pig producers are in dire trouble in Wales and in other parts of Britain. I should be pleased if the Minister could suggest to his counterparts in Europe, as he has the right to do, that deficiency payments schemes should be introduced for pig meat as we have them for beef and lamb.
The Government should give aid to new entrants to the industry. Extra financial aid should be given to local authorities and county councils to buy land to let to young farmers at a reasonable rent. I should like further capital grant schemes to be introduced, or farmers given the option to go for a capital grant scheme or cheap credit facilities. When the members of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs went to Brussels some time ago, we were told by the commissioners that if the Government wished, they could operate a capital grants scheme or give them the option of free credit facilities.
My right hon. Friend the leader of the Liberal party—I am delighted that he is present—and all of us, have pressed for years for a land bank. Now all the political parties are calling for the setting up of such a bank. Will the Minister, in his wisdom, say when the Government intend to set up a land bank to help our young farmers?
After the next election the people of Wales may be governed by an alliance Government. Then the interests of Wales will be looked after and justice will prevail in the Principality.

Mr. Tom Hooson: I was disappointed, although not surprised, by the inadequacy of the remarks on unemployment by both the right hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones), and the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris), the previous Secretary of State. I make no complaint about discussing this vital human problem. It is correct that that subject should take more of the time of the House than any other. I find quite startling the intellectual inadequacy of the Opposition's attack on the subject.
My hon. Friend the Member for Barry (Sir R. Gower) said that there was not a hint anywhere in the remarks from the Opposition that unemployment was anything but a local phenomenon produced in Wales by my right hon. Friend, or at least in Great Britain. There was no hint that West Germany is now within 10,000 of 2·5 million unemployed. Every major Western industrial nation is fighting figures that are very comparable to British levels. That is the first element of inadequacy. The second is the lack of a positive and coherent plan in all the negative dirges that we hear constantly from the Labour and alliance Benches.
The degree to which solutions are presented by the Labour party shows that Opposition Members are wise to avoid referring to positive proposals, because they are talking essentially about solutions that have already been attempted by previous Governments of both parties and


that have been discredited. Under the previous Government, those efforts led to a doubling of unemployment in Wales from the 38,000 that they inherited to the 82,000 that the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) left when he fell from office in 1979. The Left of the Labour party—of course, there are two or three Labour parties, including those hon. Members who have abandoned ship—increasingly advocates protectionism, which will guarantee the production of poorer quality goods in an uncompetitive country whose problems were caused by the decline over decades in our ability to produce competitive goods. There is also the nostrum of withdrawal from the European Community. Amazingly, the Opposition Members who are most enthusiastic about withdrawal are those whose constituencies would be hit most catastrophically by the loss of access to the European market.
I remind the hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Hughes) that the development of companies such at Mitel and those which produce microcomputers—the whole important area of electronic development—is wholly dependent upon access to the European Community market. My complaint is about the sheer inadequacy of the Labour party's attack, not the fact that the subject has been discussed.

Mr. Roy Hughes: Will the hon. Gentleman explain how a withdrawal from the Common Market would mean the loss of access to European countries? Does it mean that we need not import Volkswagens, Fiats, Renaults, butter and wine from those countries? Does he mean that they will no longer wish to sell those goods to us?

Mr. Hooson: I assure the hon. Gentleman that there would certainly be a major diminution in trade between Britain and western Europe if Britain were outside the Common Market. I need give only one example to emphasise that point. Within the Community there are many mischievious tendencies towards non-tariff barriers. It is obvious that those barriers would go up very quickly if Britain were not entitled to a place at the table.

Dr. Roger Thomas: Will the hon. Gentleman say where the words Timex, Dundee, Besancon and Fred Olsen fit into his equation?

Mr. Hooson: Many companies are in trouble in every part of Europe. I am willing to recite the disastrous figures that the French can give us. The hon. Gentleman accompanied me on a visit of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs when we discussed some of the French regional employment problems. At times, the pull of jobs is in one direction, but undoubtedly we have been net gainers from the European connection.
The fact that the world recession appears to be bottoming out has had a good effect[Interruption.] It would be helpful if hon. Members would wait until I have given my information. The OECD has taken an over-gloomy view of the world for some time, but it recently found new optimism. That optimism has been shown in newspaper reports during the past week and is based on several promising economic indicators. My hon. Friend the Member for Barry cited the fairly positive undertone to be found in the CBI survey published on 1 February. The director of the CBI in Wales, Mr. Kelsall, said:
We can be cautiously optimistic as a result of this survey.
The report shows that the industrial climate in Wales is better than in Britain generally. The volume of new

business expected by Welsh firms is higher than the national figure, and firms in Wales can feel that they have better prospects for exporting than the picture that emerged nationally. There are some crumbs of hope, and one wishes that there had been at least a slight acknowledgement of that reality in the rather sad speeches of hon. Members of both Labour and the Liberal parties
It has come as excellent news today that 32 factories will be established in nine locations in mid-Wales. I was delighted to hear that Ystradgynlais and Llandrindod Wells will house further factory development. A very useful innovation by the Government in recent weeks was the announcement of a 35 per cent. grant for the conversion of redundant buildings in rural areas for industrial use. I am convinced that a fair number of buildings can be converted into useful hives of activity, such as crafts and small factories. It is a very welcome development.
As the Member for a predominantly rural constituency, I shall make some brief comments about rural housing and about our main industry in mid-Wales, agriculture. Those who live in the rural areas are taking up the house improvement schemes enthusiastically. My right hon. Friend was right to extend the period for which funding is available for a further year until the end of 1983. It is remarkable that, according to the most recent house condition survey, the highest proportion of inadequate housing in Wales is to be found in Dyfed and Powys. Therefore, we must welcome anything that encourages the improvement of pre-1919 dwellings. The first benefit will be healthier housing, and such expenditure will revive the economy. I am especially glad that my right hon. Friend placed special emphasis on the large proportion of substandard homes occupied by pensioners. The Government clearly have a responsibility to improve those dwellings.
The second aspect of housing policy that shows the Government's positive record—the right hon. Member for Rhondda was anxious not to find a positive record anywhere—is the remarkable success of the right-to-buy legislation. The scheme has been equally successful with tenants in urban and in rural Wales. About 16 per cent. of council house tenants have applied to buy their houses, which compares with about 10 per cent. in England. It confirms what Welsh Conservatives have been saying for some time—that the Welsh people wish to own the homes in which they live. It is reflected in the fact that Wales has one of the highest proportions of home ownership in the country, at 60 per cent., and those who live on council estates have shown that they have the same taste for independence and for controlling their own environment as is found among the 60 per cent. who own their homes. The Labour party should join us in congratulating the Government on enfranchising those who live in council houses.
We are debating a Welsh economy that has been sick for a long time. It did not suddenly turn sick in May 1979. Its sickness has been a cumulative process that goes back for decades. The sickness is due largely to evasions by previous Governments in facing the problems that were clearly marching towards them.
One notably vigorous sector in Wales is the highly efficient private enterprise agricultural industry. Had manufacturing industry achieved a 4 or 5 per cent. annual improvement in productivity, which agriculture has managed to maintain since the second world war, we


would have very different unemployment figures in Wales. Agriculture has shown that there are areas where a good partnership between enlightened Government policies and the drive that is achieved by private individuals working in their own small businesses can achieve high productive output.

Mr. Gareth Wardell: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, despite agriculture being extremely productive, farm labourers have not benefited from the advantages of increased productivity?

Mr. Hooson: The record of the past few years shows that the improvement in the remuneration of agricultural labourers has been considerably superior to the rise in farmers' incomes.

Mr. Wardell: rose—

Mr. Hooson: No. I have given way already to the hon. Gentleman and he will have the chance to make his own speech if he catches the eye of the Chair.
The increased efficiency of agriculture over the past few years has not been matched by increased returns for farmers. Farmers' incomes showed an improvement in 1982, and it was high time that they did, for they had shown a decline in the previous three years. It is necessary to achieve a balance between the efficiency that is being achieved by agriculture and farmers' incomes. We must ensure that increased efficiency finds its way in reasonable measure to the bottom line of farm accounts.
The Government's achievement of a sheepmeat regime was a triumph for European diplomacy. As the right hon. Member for Rhondda is finding it so hard to find things with which to credit the Government, let him add that to the list of positive Government achievements which can be reflected in mid-Wales and throughout rural Wales. The result is that Welsh sheep flocks are very close to an all-time record level. There has been a great change in the sense of confidence of Welsh agriculture since the gloom to which it was reduced under the Labour Government.
The sheepmeat regime has done a great deal to bring confidence to the hills and it is important that the success of the regime is recognised on both sides of the House. The regime will continue only until 1984 under the present plans. It is important that we emphasise that we are satisfied with the regime's workings, so that there is no question about our desire to negotiate with our quite difficult Community partners an extension of the regime.
There is no less importance in the combined effect of the beef suckler cow premium, which the Government introduced in 1980, and the hill livestock compensatory allowance in less favoured areas. It should be remembered that Welsh hill farmers farm about 75 per cent. of the agricultural land in Wales. The premium and the compensatory allowance have increased by 80 per cent. since 1980 in the income that they produce for Welsh farmers. Let us not forget that the health of the uplands depends upon the combined effect of these schemes.

Mr. Geraint Howells: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree with me that he should give a great deal of credit to our counterparts in Europe for the fact that we have a thriving agriculture. The majority of the money spent on the hills and the sheepmeat regime comes from Europe.

Mr. Hooson: The hon. Gentleman and I will not find ourselves differing on our commitment to the European connection, although I must say that faith wavers a great deal when Britain encounters the EC's bureaucracy and obscure language. However, the desirability of the European connection is demonstrated by the evidence that I have cited and by the impressive results of the polls which have recently been reported by the Farmers Weekly, which reflect the overwhelming support of farmers both for the European connection and for the Conservative party.

Mr. Alec Jones: Surprise, surprise.

Mr. Hooson: It is very important that there should be a push forward with the slowly evolving policy on disadvantaged land. The Government presented their proposals to the European Commission in December. The agricultural department of the Welsh Office verified the existence of about 660,000 acres in Wales that should qualify within the European definition of disadvantaged land. It is important that we secure recognition of the particular needs of Wales. The acreage of disadvantaged land is about 18 per cent. of the total agricultural land in Wales. Assuming that this land is accepted by the European Commission as qualifying within the rules, will the matching funds be available in due course from the domestic Government? This is frequently the snag with European schemes. I look forward to a definitive reply from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State.

Mr. Leo Abse: We have had an extraordinary speech from the Secretary of State for Wales. We did not have the usual abrasive, aggressive and blustering attack. On the contrary, never have I heard the right hon. Gentleman more soothing and more placatory. It is not surprising, for it is a method of defence. It has been used, of course, to mask the appalling catalogue of woe that Wales has experienced. I have rarely known the right hon. Gentleman more insouciant. He made, as is usual on these occasions, a lengthy speech, which is what is due to Wales when these debates take place. I believe that it was, however, impertinence to make only a passing reference to the grave problem of unemployment.
I sometimes wonder whether it is possible to shame the right hon. Gentleman. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones) has endeavoured to do so. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) followed my right hon. Friend's example. I think that the right hon. Gentleman is shameless. The Under-Secretary of State is a former schoolmaster. I wonder whether he is aware of the various streams in society as he always was aware of the streams in his school. Does the hon. Gentleman ponder on the composition of the unemployed of Wales as of elsewhere and the extent to which unemployment falls upon those within the community who need more aid, more help and more succour because they are socially disadvantaged? Men are not born equal, and we know that there are intractable problems. Does this not mean that if the pretentious and old policies of paternalism, which are always claimed by the Tory party, are applied, its hand will be stretched out first? I do not expect that from the Secretary of State. From the moment that he took office he has been a hard-line monetarist. As he is a satrap of the


Prime Minister, we do not expect him to take a different stance. With extraordinary complacency, he is prepared to allow unemployment in his constituency to rise to 30 per cent. That being so, how can we expect him to pay attention to unemployment in the rest of Wales? The Under-Secretary of State knows the difficulties. We have high graduate unemployment and high unemployment among older men who cannot get new jobs. Nevertheless, we cannot fail to notice that the vast majority of the people who are unemployed are those who need a policy that is directed towards full employment if they are to be assimilated rather than left stranded.
The real gap between the two sides of the House is that we on the Labour Benches believe in the welfare state. We believe in it because we believe that there are people who need special help, just as there are children in every school who need special help.

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Michael Roberts): The hon. Gentleman has raised an important point. He mentions the gap between his side of the House and mine. When he supported the previous Labour Government, he could have said that the then Secretary of State for Employment allowed nearly 30 per cent. of the people in Ebbw Vale to become unemployed. The hon. Gentleman did not make that judgment then. I recommend that, when he advances a good case for people, he should be aware of the dangers and difficulties of the under-privileged and adopt a generosity of mind and appreciate that we care, too.

Mr. Abse: There should be a translation from theory into action. In terms of action, the Government have completely failed. I have touched the Under-Secretary on a sore point. He understands the intractable problem of a large population, some of whom do not have the skill or ability to be absorbed. We have submerged a section of the nation. To judge from speeches that have consistently been made by Conservative Members, those people have no hope. Only pessimism has come from Conservative Members. They use what the previous Government did or the recession as an alibi.
We are not prepared to concede that economic woe and travail is predestined or predetermined. Our nation has considerable wealth in coal, oil and skills. It is human will and leadership that determines whether one takes the bold and radical measures that are necessary. The Secretary of State failed for example, to mention that Wales is suffering from the bungled intervention of the Government in the water dispute. We must rebuild the infrastructure in Wales. The strike is revealing yet again how fundamental it is that we should tackle our obsolescent and ageing infrastructure. The Secretary of State is silent on the problem.
The Government say that we must choose. They have chosen to spend billions of pounds on Trident. They mock the women of Wales who gathered at Greenham common. The people who are concerned with the quality of life, not death, react differently. The bold and radical economic policies that are being spelt out by the Labour party are at least a positive response. Conservative Members may say that they are not proven. There is a great difference between doing nothing and launching a bold attack, being prepared to face up to the consequences of import controls and being prepared to gain the confidence of the unions in a policy that will improve productivity. Irrespective of

whether those policies succeed in practice, they represent action. The Government and all their supporters are completely passive. They accept the problem as if it were inevitable and an act of God rather than recognising that it requires resilience, strength and the type of leadership that is singularly lacking in the present Government.

Mr. Ian Grist: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Abse: No, I shall not give way, as many other hon. Members wish to speak.

Mr. Grist: Where are they?

Mr. Abse: Have no fear, the debate will continue until 10 o'clock. I know how many hon. Members are bursting to speak. That is not surprising given the problems that they are presented with.
Bearing in mind the clear mood of Wales, the feelings of depression and despair, I should have thought that anyone with a ha'porth of sense would not exacerbate the problem. No one with any sense would add to the anxieties of the Welsh people. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda probed the Secretary of State determinedly. The Secretary of State may laugh, but tomorrow Wales will realise for the first time that a cabal has been established under a Tory chairman with civil servants who must carry out Government policy. A cabal has been formed to create a prototype for health authorities for privatisation. When they know that, the people of Wales will pay as little attention to the denials of a deliberate savaging of the Health Service as they pay to the equivocations of the Secretary of State. I gather from the fact that the Secretary of State wishes to intervene that there will now be more equivocation.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: I have just reminded myself that I announced the formation of that group during the debate on the Health Service in the Welsh Grand Committee. I announced who its chairman would be. There could hardly be a clearer example of open government, openly declared. Moreover, the drive towards efficiency was welcomed by the Opposition. In the same debate, I pointed out that for all the worthless rhetoric of the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse), this Government have increased resources for the Health Service more in real terms than did the previous Government.

Mr. Abse: The right hon. Gentleman seems incapable of mastering the fact that he has condoned, if not initiated, terms of reference that are concentrated not on the real needs of the Health Service, but on the desire to privatise and give out to private enterprise everything that it is possible to give.
We all know that there are grave problems in hospitals from Bangor to Newport to Cardiff. The Secretary of State does not talk about that. Nor does he talk about the structural dangers that we all know exist, although Wales is not talking loudly about it. He does not mention the dangers that involve enormous capital expenditure. In Cardiff, for example, if the hospital in the Heath area is to survive, millions of pounds will have to be spent on the roof.
The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary are looking at each other. If they do not know about some of the problems that face the hospital in the Heath, I suggest


that instead of examining the schemes that they talk about for getting rid of some of our technical services, they should bend a closer ear to the hazards that exist.
Further privatisation is proceeding all over Wales. Newspaper reports today describe yet another Government blunder. They are selling off the docks and handing over millions of pounds to the speculators. Either through lack of commercial skill or through a clear determination that others should enrich themselves through the disposal of public assets, they are bungling things in the same way as they did in relation to Britoil and other public asset stripping operations.
The Secretary of State now wants to get rid of Cwmbran new town. One would have thought that the Government would leave well alone when they are in so much trouble already. However, with yet another political appointment—a new Tory chairman—of the type that we have seen all over Wales, the plan is to dispose of the assets not just at a loss to the public purse but in a way that could exacerbate unemployment.
There has already been one abortive attempt to get rid of the industrial assets of Cwmbran. Like all the other new towns, it was the pride of Wales. Created by the 1945 Labour Government, the new towns attracted praise and pilgrimages from all over the world. Cwmbran is one of those monuments to public enterprise of which we are so proud, but it is now being hawked around for sale. The Government's first utterly inept attempt to sell off the assets involved hawking the industrial assets, the estates and the buildings, around London estate agents at a time of most severe recession. But for the intervention of the Treasury, those assets would already have been sold off at disgraceful prices, with predators wresting guarantees from the Government and from the new town corporation.
Only the intervention of the Treasury prevented even worse schemes from coming into effect. The Government therefore waited. Now they are starting again. Once again, they are plotting to get rid of those industrial assets.
I sometimes wonder whether the Government realise what that may mean. A great deal of work has been done to build up 320 small units of 10,000 or less sq ft, an enterprise that would not have interested private investors. As a result, many new small firms have been attracted to the new town, creating a structure of pioneers in small factory units. A comprehensive service can be given to those businesses and there is enormous expertise in building up and offering small units from 500 to 5,000 sq ft. Now it is suddenly suggested that all that should be taken over by private investors, and that type of comprehensive service cannot be genuinely provided under private ownership.
Worse in many respects than the attempted sale of the industrial assets is the way in which the whole town centre is to be hawked around the big estate companies. The

reconstruction costs for Cwmbran town centre are at least £30 million and the historic costs, £10 million. Yet it is already well known in the City estate market that those assets are to be hawked with a view to obtaining £10 million to £15 million. That is the bargain basement offer to be made by a Government so ideological that, although this is a wonderful public investment that will be increasingly valuable as the years go by, they wish to engage in this ugly exercise of asset stripping which can bring only trouble for all the small shopkeepers in the area and sabotage and dislocation for all who use the services.
People come from far and wide to use the services available at Cwmbran. The corporation provides more than 3,000 free parking spaces. If they are sold, there will inevitably be high charges with consequent severe damage to the shopkeepers and to all the major attractions which benefit from facilities that are second to none.
The Government are plotting to dismantle an entire new town and to sell it off as cheaply as possible to the kind of people who finance the Tory party and keep it going. The Government are desperately offering the town and its assets to their friends even though that will sabotage the creation of jobs.
In exactly the same way, the Government want to privatise all the ordnance factories in Wales, spreading anxiety in their eagerness to hand over public assets to the private merchants of death and armaments. Thousands of workers in those factories already believe that they are in danger of being sold as chattels to new and unknown masters. The regular employees who have worked as civil servants for decades are now full of anxiety because they do not know where they stand in relation to redundancy payments, pensions and agreements, because the Government have made it clear that they want to introduce legislation to privatise those factories in such a way that many of the employees will have to leave. If the workers there are offered the chance to remain employed, it will certainly be on new terms and modified contracts.
I should have thought that this should be a time of diffidence, of concern on the part of the Government, given the widespread distress that their economic policies have already caused. I do not expect to change the attitude of the Secretary of State who I hope has now made his last speech as Secretary of State on a Welsh day in Parliament. I make it clear to the Under-Secretary, however, who affects to have some understanding and concern for people, that the paternalistic attitude that was once part of the impress and pretensions of the Tory party has gone. He and all the other wets in the Welsh Conservative party should realise that their day is done and power has passed to the political thugs, of whom the Secretary of State is a true representative. I am confident that, with that knowledge, the people of Wales will reject not only the thugs but the wets who have acquiesced in creating a Wales so far removed from the hopes and aspirations that its people had under Labour Governments.

Business of the House

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): It might be for the convenience of the House if the Leader of the House were to make his business statement now.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to make a short business statement.
In the light of Mr. Speaker's decision this afternoon to grant the application under Standing Order No. 9 on Monday 14 February, it will be proposed that the private Members' motions set down for consideration until 7 o'clock will be proceeded with on a future occasion.
The business for Monday will now therefore be as follows:
Debate on the Adjournment motion under Standing Order No. 9 on the water dispute.
Second Reading of the Miscellaneous Financial Provisions Bill.
At 7 o'clock, consideration of opposed private business which has been named by the Chairman of Ways and Means.

Mr. John Silkin: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will the Leader of the House confirm that it is not his intention that the private Members' motions, which will be deferred because of the successful Standing Order No. 9 application, will take place on a day other than a Monday? It is of importance to the House. I do not believe that it is an order of the House, but it is a long-standing convention, that such motions are debated on a Monday.

Mr. Biffen: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Certainly it is a tradition and custom that private Members' motions are debated on a Monday. I shall certainly bear in mind the point made by the right hon. Gentleman when I consider the alternative date.

Mr. Bob Cryer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will the Second Reading of the Miscellaneous Financial Provisions Bill be taken after 10 o'clock? There will be little room for that Bill before 7 o'clock if the Standing Order No. 9 debate lasts for three hours and starts at approximately 4 o'clock.

Mr. Biffen: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Yes, that is so, but it is conceivable, although I am not saying it is likely, that the opposed private business might be concluded in less than the three hours which will be allowed.

Welsh Affairs

Sir Anthony Meyer: Before that brief interruption, the House had listened to a characteristic, and characteristically over-long, speech by the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse). He is to the Welsh parliamentary Labour party what the The Sun newspaper is the the rest of Fleet street—without the saving grace of page 3.
My hon. Friend the Member for Barry (Sir R. Gower) did well to remind us of the international dimension of our Welsh problems. Few Welsh problems can be solved or even alleviated by specifically Welsh measures, and few of Great Britain's problems can be helped much by specifically British measures, The best that Government policies can achieve is to enable Wales and Great Britain to take advantage of the next upturn in the world economy and—much more important, although perhaps less vote-catching —to contribute to that upturn. However, we should never lose sight of that ever-important national dimension.
It is precisely because the policies now being advocated by the Labour party, however open to debate they may be on purely domestic grounds, cannot but contribute towards making the world economic position worse that they cause so much anxiety to many of the more thoughtful Opposition Members and are rejected out of hand by all my right hon. and hon. Friends. None of us on the Conservative Benches are happy—how could we be?—with the present position in Wales, but we are immensely grateful to the Secretary of State for the battles which he has fought and won for Wales in the Cabinet. am particularly grateful to him and to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North-West (Mr. Roberts) for accepting the new clause that I moved to the Conwy Tunnel Bill 1983 to provide for preference to be given to local labour. On that occasion I harvested the seed sown so diligently and nurtured so carefully over many years by my hon. Friend the Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts). He has toiled ceaselessly for his constituents in that matter and is now perforce reduced to ministerial silence.
We look to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to do all he can in his Budget to ease the plight of those worst hit by the recession: those on low incomes and families with small children. Their needs must come before concessions to those people fortunate enough to have jobs. Although I want to see the Chancellor help industry in his Budget by cutting the national insurance surcharge, I have some considerable doubts, as will become apparent, about how far an industrial revival will cure our unemployment problems.
There is not one hon. Member who is not deeply worried by the level of unemployment in the Principality today. How could we be otherwise? It is appalling that so many children leave school with no certainly of a proper job. A man or a woman made redundant at 45 is likely never to work again. It is difficult not to become emotional in the face of such frustrated hopes and ambitions. I sometimes wish that the unemployed themselves would show more anger and less apathy. However, emotion and anger will not help solve the problem. We should do better to face the facts.
The first fact is that much of British manufacturing industry, however hard it may strive to make itself


competitive with industry in the newly developing countries, is bound to succumb in the end unless we are prepared to accept the same living standards and ant-like patterns of work that exist in the countries of East Asia. We can protect ourselves against this competition for somewhat longer as a member of the EC. Unless we cease to be a trading nation—we cannot do that unless we ship half our population to Australia— a policy of protection is more likely to accelerate than postpone the catastrophe.
The second fact is that Wales is more dependent on manufacturing industry than most other parts of Great Britain. It depends particularly upon the heavy industries which are furthest down the slope of irreversible decline. Of course some firms are holding their own. It is possible, with superb management and intelligent, flexible work practices, to hold our own for a long time.
When I visit firms such as Hotpoint Ltd., Pilkington Bros., and Egatube Ltd. in my constituency, or the new firms such as Metro Optics or Chapman Metallurgical, I come away reassured about the vitality of Welsh industry. However, I also come away reflecting that they are employing fewer people now than they did for a smaller output a few years ago. There is still scope in even these most efficient firms for further cuts in manpower. It is still more sobering to know that they could increase output immensely to meet a rise in world demand without taking on an extra man or woman.
It is time to face squarely the fact that, whatever may happen to industrial production, the decline in industrial employment is irreversible. It may even be speeded up if there is a recovery in the world economy. We have not merely to face this inevitable process but to welcome and speed it up. We must stop looking to industry as a provider of jobs. Industry's function is to create wealth with the smallest possible work force. We must find other satisfying things for our people to do. I have believed for a long time that we need a vast expansion and improvement of all our social services, which are now among the most inadequate in Europe. We can do that only if people pay for the social services that they use. However, I shall not develop that theme now.
There is one industry that can provide hundreds of thousands of jobs which does not, and never will, lend itself to automation and robotisation, and which is of far greater value to this country now than it ever has been. I mean, of course, the tourist industry, in which there has been a welcome growth in recent years. I pay tribute to the work of the Wales tourist board, particularly in mid-Wales. Tomorrow the board is holding its meeting in Rhyl—for the first time, I am rather horrified to say. I shall be taking part in that meeting. The feeling in Rhyl is that the board has been hoity-toity towards Rhyl's frankly popular type of tourist trade. I hope that things will mend in that respect after this weekend and that the board will be prepared to concede some recognition and give some encouragement to those who are attempting to raise standards at the bottom end of the holiday price range.
However, all that is tinkering. The time has come to think big. I was absolutely delighted to hear what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said about the two big projects for the tourist industry that are now to go ahead with Government help and encouragement, but both, alas, in south Wales. In north Wales, the major success story has been the Rhyl suncentre, a project that owes so much

to the courage and foresight of a handful of local councillors and which owes nothing at all to Opposition Members who were Ministers in the Welsh Office in the Labour Government, who not only did nothing at all to help in that project, but did their damnedest to frighten off the merchant bankers who were backing the scheme.
Now, surely, is the time to start thinking in terms of other projects on that scale. I was delighted to hear what my right hon. Friend said about help under the urban development grants for the Rhyl town centre scheme. Rhyl now desperately needs a proper theatre to be built alongside the suncentre as phase two of the project. Further along the front is room for a properly equipped yacht marina and extensive harbour works. We have been scratching around doing odd jobs with Manpower Services Commission schemes, but the time has come to start thinking big. Such projects could provide employment for thousands during their construction and for hundreds during their operation. They would provide facilities perhaps for millions.
With its all-weather suncentre, its theatre, and its marina, Rhyl could become an all-year-round resort with facilities that few continental resorts could match. The same could be done at traditional resorts all round Wales. If there is to be a major expansion in tourism in Wales, most of it will have to be in the traditional resorts and some of it perhaps even in hitherto industrial areas, which could be developed as tourist attractions. There are strict limits to the extent to which we can further develop the tourist potential of rural Wales without spoiling its character and thus destroying the tourist attractions that take people there at present. We are a long way from reaching those limits. For example, why do we not get on with restoring the entire network of Welsh canals? At this point someone will say to me, "Yes, but where will the money come from?"

Mr. Roy Hughes: What about our Welsh castles?

Sir Anthony Meyer: I am not aware that the castles are losing any of their tourist attraction. I was pleased at the campaign that was launched by the Wales tourist board to make this the year of the Welsh castle.
Someone will say to me, "Where will the money come from?" All that I can say is that we seem to manage to find hundreds of millions of pounds each year to prop up a steel industry that is still, even after all the cuts, larger than can hope to survive world competition. By deciding to keep steel making at Ravenscraig, we have almost certainly ensured that there will be a further cut in due course in steel production in Wales. We manage to find hundreds of millions of pounds to keep men working in coal mines where the seams are too thin or too deep to be mined profitably and further hundreds of millions to keep in business our nationalised car firm making Japanese models under licence and a new British model with a German gear box. What is more, as has been said by hon. Members, the hundreds of millions of pounds that have been poured in provide little in the way of new jobs.
If we gave Lord Parry and his board one tenth of what we are giving the admirable Mr. Ian McGregor or Mr. Siddall, I have no doubt that they could create many more jobs and do a lot more for human happiness than can the coal, steel or even the motor industries.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: Surely the examples that I have given my hon. Friend today of major hotel


development stimulated by urban development grants give him and the inhabitants of Rhyl the lead they need. They must find proper commercial ventures that will be viable in future and bring them forward with the support of local authorities. Then we can consider whether the same stimulus can be given to such projects. It is a job not just for the tourist board and the Government but for the private sector, which should be attracted and which can do the work that my hon. Friend wants done.

Sir Anthony Meyer: My right hon. Friend has lit the fuse. I hope that he realises the potential for expansion of the tourist industry in Rhyl and the readiness to go ahead with schemes once there is a green light. His speech and intervention will be read avidly in Rhyl. They will have an enormous effect in bolstering people's confidence. I agree that it is no good sitting back and waiting for the tourist board and the Government to do the job for one. Local enterprise and private firms must get on with it. However, they must do so in a climate of encouragement from the Government, to which my right hon. Friend has contributed in his speech.
I emerge from the debate more hopeful than when I went in. The Government are turning in a direction that will bring new hope to Wales. Their imaginative schemes are completely radical. I wish my right hon. Friend, if it be his wish, many more years in his present office in the next, the next, and the next Conservative Government.

Mr. Dafydd Wigley: I do not know for how much longer the Secretary of State for Wales can bear the turmoils and burdens of his present office. If there is no drastic change in the course that Wales is taking, I think that he will be glad of any excuse to move on to greener pasture. I do not mean that in any harsh personal sense.
I appreciate the work of the Welsh Office with regard to the announcement of the vanguard areas. I am glad that Wales is ahead of England in the thinking on provision for the mentally handicapped and in moving towards their integration into the community. I hope that these schemes will be successful.
It is not because I underrate the other issues that have been mentioned by various speakers, but because of the overwhelming importance of unemployment to all our communities in Wales, that I wish to concentrate almost exclusively on this subject. I listened to the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) with interest, when he said that young people should raise their voices more. Given the desperate plight that faces them in Wales and elsewhere, it is surprising that they are not doing so. It is worrying that an element of hopelessness is creeping in. One thinks of the words of Dylan Thomas:
Do not go gentle into that good night.
There is a danger that people are accepting an inevitability that will break their souls and make it difficult for them to come out of this period with a base on which to build their lives and communities. More than 37,000 young people under 20 in Wales are now unemployed. That puts the matter into perspective. About 700 in the Dwyfor and Arfon area in my constituency are unemployed in this age range. From experience in my surgery I know the hopelessness with which many young people face the future.
I do not believe that unemployment is inevitable. But if there is any inevitability about the depression, we must

find a better way of spreading the burden throughout the community, rather than loading it on to the 20 per cent. at the bottom of the job market, and on to young people who have had no experience of life and no basis on which to withstand the pressures of today.
I do not accept that unemployment is inevitable. There is a worldwide depression, but other small countries, some the same size as Wales, have succeeded in riding out the storm better than we have. The unemployment rate is 2·3 per cent. in Norway, 3 per cent. in Sweden, 0·5 per cent. in Switzerland, 4·4 per cent. in Austria and 2 per cent. in Greece. It is not a coincidence that the figures are low. Those countries have special policies. I was in Sweden before Christmas. When unemployment rose to over 4 per cent. there, the Government regarded that as unacceptable and introduced specific schemes to bring down unemployment. They were not willing to tolerate the social consequences that would arise from it.
In Wales there is 17 per cent. Unemployment—180,000 people are registered unemployed and 50,000 oil top of that are hidden unemployed because of the reduction in the activity rate. Thousands are on artificial jobs, which are not rewarding or enriching and which do not give much in terms of training. That is the contrast—our 17 per cent. against the 3 and 4 per cent. of some small countries which have set about tackling the problem.
The hon. Member for Flint, West said that we should not look to manufacturing industry for future employment. Perhaps it is inevitable that there will be fewer jobs for a given level of output from manufacturing industry, but I refuse to accept that unemployment is inevitable. All around us we see work to be done. I have said this before, and I shall say it again. Perhaps we should raise our voices even louder on this subject. We see houses that need to be repaired and built. We see the unfit housing conditions in which 10 per cent. and more of our people are living. We have heard about the old people in Dyfed and Powys, and it is true in my area. There is certainly a need for better housing stock.
There are certainly roads in Wales that need to be improved. All constituencies have road schemes that could go forward. There is a need for day clinics for the handicapped and the elderly. We know that there is a need for home helps, so that people can continue to live in their own homes, instead of being put into permanent homes at local authority expense—or even into hospitals.
We know that more nurses are needed in hospitals. I have seen in recent months the burden that many hospital nurses are carrying. We know that environmental schemes are necessary in Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, and in rural areas. Work needs to be done to tidy up the environment. All around us we see work that needs to be done, and all around us there are people who are capable of doing that work, but we do not have a Government who are capable of bringing the two together.
Various figures have been quoted in recent years of the cost of unemployment. A few years ago the Manpower Services Commission gave the figure of £6,000 a year for a man, with two children, on the average industrial wage, that being the difference to the Treasury in terms of what had to be paid out in supplementary and unemployment benefits, on the one hand, and the loss of taxation on the other. Subsequently, lower figures have been given, but the cost of unemployment has been admitted to be about


£15,000 million, and that is to pay people for doing nothing, when we could be paying perhaps a little more for people to do the work that needs to be done.

Mr. Michael Roberts: When the hon. Gentleman says that he looks around Wales and sees things that need to be done and people there to do them, does he accept that the community programme helps to meet that need?

Mr. Wigley: The community programme is starting to dabble around the edges of the problem, but it is not a coherent long-term programme. People are often taken on for a few months' work and put back on the scrapheap. The hon. Gentleman knows that, and so do I, from the young people who come to our surgeries. Often there is not adequate training, and as a result the people involved are unsuitable for long-term work afterwards. That, together with the reduction in apprenticeships, causes problems for the future in terms of skills within the community.
Instead of putting the burden of unemployment on the 20 per cent. who are out of work, is it not more morally acceptable to share the burden throughout the community? Instead of spending £5,000, on average, to keep people out of work, we should pay £6,000 or £7,000 for people to do this work, and if this means higher taxation, so be it. We should accept higher taxation to ensure that the people who are out of work get work. The burden of the depression should be shouldered by all the people in the community and not put on the shoulders of those who are least capable of bearing it, particularly the young. Here is a challenge for both this and future Governments. It is not good enough to say that unemployment is inevitable, that there is a worldwide recession, that we have to live with it and allow a whole generation to be blighted.
I therefore make a plea for a change in policy, even at the price of higher taxation, if we are to obtain a more acceptable solution to the problem. Although jobs are being lost in manufacturing industry, wealth is still being created. We must ask how that wealth is to be recycled throughout the community. Jobs will be available in building robots, microprocessors and all the capital equipment that is needed for the technological revolution that is taking place. That, too, is a challenge, and we must ensure that we in Wales have our share of the investment that is taking place and the jobs that will result.
When the industrial revolution took place a couple of hundred years ago and there was a move from agriculture to industry, there were, of course, people who suffered in the interim, but in the end it did not mean that everyone was out of work. The same is true now. Certainly there may be arguments for a lower retiring age, and there may be arguments in some industries, for example, mining, for bringing it down to 55, but there is no argument for saying that young people between the ages of 16 and 20 should carry the burden that we, as a community, should face.
There are specific matters to which we in Wales should apply ourselves to overcome the unemployment problems. First—and this is something that I mentioned on Monday at Question Time—the Welsh Development Agency needs a sharp shake-up. I do not say that as a critic of the concept of the Welsh Development Agency. I have pressed for it over the past 10 to 15 years. Nevertheless, its performance has not been adequate. The report from which I quoted

briefly on Monday is fairly devastating. It is the Larsen Sweeney report—a consultants' report—and it was quoted in the magazine Atlantic of November 1982. It said:
Of the various development organisations in the United Kingdom the Scottish Development Agency was regarded as being the most capable, followed by the Northern Ireland agency. The English agencies were generally regarded as being incompetent and the Welsh Development Agency was the subject of the most anecdotal amusement".
That is not good enough. The Secretary of State denied the reports in the Western Mail, but whatever he denies in this Chamber, I hope that a shake-up is taking place so that the agency will have a more interventionist and positive role.
The WDA has three functions. Two of them any fool can get on with. Given an adequate budget, any fool can build empty factories. Equally, it is straightforward to clear up environmental mess and improve the landscape. Those are simple functions as long as one has the money. If one bungles that, one really should get the sack. The vital function of creating economic and employment regeneration is where the challenge lies, and that is where so far the WDA has failed. We need to look at the guidelines of the WDA, and its plan and strategy, and build on them. I do not say that as a criticism, but when words such as the ones that I quoted appear in magazines around the world it is time to put our house in order and start building the economy in Wales.
I want to refer to a couple of specific matters. The first involves the Government's attitude to European grants. I have mentioned before additionality, the fact that grants from the European regional development fund are being subsumed in London into a total pool and are not specifically additional to be earmarked for specific projects in Wales and elsewhere. In fact, only for housing projects in Northern Ireland have these funds been used in an additional way. This is fundamental if we are to get any benefit from the EC structures that we have. The money is meant to go to the areas that most need it, and it is meant to go in addition to whatever central Governments contribute.
Secondly, there is room for concern in Wales at the reports that came out just before Christmas that the inner city areas of England will take money from the RDF. I do not decry the needs of inner city areas in London, Birmingham or elsewhere in England, but if the limited pool of money that is available is to be spread through the inner city areas as well, to meet the problems of the inner city areas, there will be a drastic reduction of the money that is available for the development areas of Wales and elsewhere. That will be a cause of considerable concern.
A few weeks ago we had the Serpell report. That worries us in Gwynedd. I am sure that the hon. Member for Conway is anxious that the implications of the report should not come to pass. It is not just a matter of cutting out option A, which the Government have announced they are willing to do. Option B and two parts of option C are equally unacceptable. Indeed, five of the six maps are unacceptable to me. They close down the only railway in my constituency—the Cambrian coast line. Three of the six maps close down the line from Crewe to Holyhead which would be an economic devastation for Gwynedd. If the Government do not intend to do that, let them announce now that all the options that have such unacceptable elements in them are out of court so that this uncertainty can be ended, because uncertainty is one of the devastating factors that holds back economic regeneration in my area. The percentage of the GDP going towards the


railways in the United Kingdom compared with other countries shows that we are putting less money than we should into this vital function.
We have seen a reduction in the areas that receive regional development aid and within those areas a reduction of the percentage of aid available. I do not want to make too much of that. There are elements more important than the percentage investment grant. Nevertheless, the Government trend has been away from regional policy and they have not replaced that with any other policy.
The result of Government policy in my area over the past three years has been the almost complete elimination of the manufacturing base. We have lost the SCM typewriter factory at Porthmaogd; the Alphacast aluminium factory at Penygroes; the Bernard Wardle factory in Caernarfon; the ARO engineering factory; Caernarfon: the ADG Fibres factory; and the Compact factory in Caernarfon. This week has seen a question mark hanging over Ferodo which has been the bright jewel in the crown of regional development for the last 20 years. If Ferodo were to go I should have virtually no manufacturing industry left in my constituency.
It is no use the Secretary of State coming to the Dispatch Box and saying that the Government have built so many factories under the WDA programme. The reality is that male unemployment in my area stands at 24 per cent. Factories are closing and they are not being replaced to absorb the youth unemployment to which I have referred.
We have known that 2,000 jobs in the CEGB scheme at Dinorwig have been running down, yet we have not had the wit to ensure that the equivalent number of jobs will be provided, when that was within the Government's planning capability. The Conwy tunnel is going ahead and I accept that there is a clause that will lead to the maximisation of local jobs. I welcome that. I would only say, perhaps teasingly, to the hon. Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts), that when we discussed such a contract in relation to the Bangor bypass the Welsh Office was not quite so keen on having such conditions then. I say to the hon. Member for Cardiff, North-West (Mr. Roberts) that it is no use having such clauses in Bills unless they are carried through in practice. At Dinorwig the scheme manager Iorwerth Ellis was determined to make this work in practice. It lies in the Government's hands when putting contracts out for road schemes to make sure that that works in practice.

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Wyn Roberts): The hon. Gentleman will be interested to know that I gave full support to his predecessor, the late Lord Goronwy Roberts, to put the clause into the Dinorwig Bill which provided that the CEGB would use its best endeavours to employ local labour on the scheme. It is our experience, as my hon. Friend will, I am sure, confirm when he replies to the debate, that most road works employ between 75 and 80 per cent. of local labour and we have no reason to think that that is not the case for the Bangor bypass.

Mr. Wigley: The hon. Gentleman might have reason to think that but the Transport and General Workers Union has reason to think otherwise and that argument is better understood by the TGWU than by the hon. Gentleman in relation to the Bangor bypass.
The one growth sector in Gwynedd over the past year or so has been related to the advent of the S4C television channel, where we have seen about 200 jobs, either directly or indirectly arising from as many as 30 companies which produce programmes for the Welsh television channel. That has been a great success, not only as a channel, but in creating work. It is a limited success but it shows that in an area such as Gwynedd—and this is true for other parts of Wales as well—we need not necessarily look to manufacturing or tourist industries to solve our problems. One has only to imagine how many television channels there are operating at this moment all around the world to see that programmes need to be generated at an equal pace. Wales has the scenery, the mountains, the climate and the sea. Moreover Wales has a tradition in the verbal arts which goes well with radio and television broadcasting. Not only could we produce television programmes for S4C but we could build on that basis to produce television programmes and films for channels all around the world. That would ideally suit an area such as mine.
We are putting millions of pounds into petrol refineries and so on and a fraction of that money would be a pump-priming exercise of tremendous benefit to areas such as mine. There is a challenge here which the Government have not met. They are willing to live with the excuse that unemployment is inevitable. We in Plaid Cymru are not. We are determined that something should be done about it.

Mr. Tom Ellis: I listened with close attention and much interest to the Secretary of State presenting his list of activities, projects and works of various kinds which seem to be springing up across the whole length and breadth of Wales. While I would not be quite so frank as the right hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones) in accusing the Secretary of State of simply dressing the shop window preparatory to a general election, I must say that I found the list distinctly odd. As I listened to him spell out the list a conundrum began to form in my mind which I am afraid to say I have been unable to resolve, and I hope that when the Minister replies he will be able to do so. That conundrum concerns an apparent paradox in the Government's policy. I want to spend two or three minutes trying to explain that paradox.
I start by quoting from a statement issued last week by the chairman of the Clwyd county council finance committee drawing attention to unemployment in Clwyd. I should say that county councillors in Clwyd are for the most part sensible, reasonable and moderate men. I would go far as to say that they are wise men. They are not like Ken Livingstone. We do not have such councillors in my county, I am happy to say. I know the chairman of the finance committee and I have a considerable regard for him. He is a sensible fellow. When he makes such statements it causes one to wonder a little about the position we are getting into. He talks about the unemployment figures and says that they are shocking and have reached an all-time record for the county. Then he goes on to say:
Taking into account the number of people on temporary unemployment relief schemes, we can now say that one in four of the County's workforce are without permanent jobs.


If the rest of Wales is like Clwyd we are more or less approaching the position of the great depression in the late-1920s and early-1930s. That is a serious position. In trying to explain that grave position some hon. Members have referred to the international situation, saying that it is an international economic problem. I am the first to accept that the rest of the world must have an important bearing on a country such as Britain, which has for long been a trading nation.
Given any set of international circumstances, Governments can try either to alleviate the position or to compound it. This Government are compounding the already grave international position. Not only are there no signs from the Government that they are trying to do anything about that international state of affairs, but there is evidence that they are pouring cold water on any attempt to do anything.
To discuss this compounding by the Government of an already grave position, I shall quote the last sentence in the leading article of The Times of Tuesday about economic policy. I do not wish to misrepresent the article but, in a sense, it juxtaposes decreasing inflation on the one hand with decreasing unemployment on the other. Perhaps I have over simplified it. I shall give the flavour of the article by quoting the last sentence. Before I read the quotation I must tell the House that I have been an avid reader of The Times for many years. I have always regarded it as a good newspaper but in recent year—certainly under the new proprietorship and the new editorship —it seems as if it is adopting the role it had in the 1930s as an unofficial voice of the Conservative Government of the day. With that as a preface, I shall read the sentence:
In the long run, emphasis on full employment as the Government's major economic objective is misplaced; in the short run, it would undermine the climate of responsible collective bargaining on which simultaneous progress towards higher employment and lower inflation can be based.
That is a remarkable sentence. It gives rise to many matters, not only economic, but social and political.
The article refers to a "natural" level of employment. It quotes Professor Friedman referring to this "natural" level which is necessary in order adequately and efficiently to regulate wage and incomes demands. One must ask "What is the 'natural' level?" Is it 3 million; 3 s½ million; or 4 million? It appears that we have not yet reached the "natural" level, but perhaps we can take a stab in the dark and say that 4 million will be the "natural" level for this country.
This is where the paradox to which I referred comes in. The Government, open advocates of monetarism and Professor Friedman's policies, are aiming for a "natural" level of 4 million or whatever, while at the same time we have the Secretary of State for Wales trotting out a list of things that he will do in Wales to secure exactly the opposite. That is the paradox that I cannot resolve and which I hope the Under-Secretary, when he replies to the debate, will try to explain.
If that is the policy — there is overwhelming evidence that it is the policy—the economic defeatism is breathtaking. The problems that follow and arise from it in the late 20th century are enormous. In a speech last week, the leader of the Liberal party referred to the unemployment rates in the constituencies. Apparently, the Library has worked out the unemployment rate for each

constituency in the country. It is a remarkable fact that of the 100 worst hit constituencies, only four have Conservative Members. Of the 100 best constituencies, only one has a Labour Member.
We are becoming two nations geographically and territorially in a way Disraeli would never have dreamt of. There are all manner of problems if that is the policy. My clear inference from what the Secretary of State said is that it is a matter of cosmetics. I know that we have had cosmetics on regional policy for a long time but never as blatantly as today. That is not to say that I do not welcome these schemes. The right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) referred to the importance of the scheme in south Cardiff and Swansea. The schemes are important, but in comparison with the position in Wales, they are a nonsense. I like a bit of scent and a bit of rouge but I would not rely on scent and rouge for the rest of my life.
I shall make one further philosophic point before I get down to brass tacks—sometimes I am accused of trotting out a homespun philosophy. That policy will not work and nor, for that matter, will the ramshackle contrivance of the Labour party which, even if it starts, will end up with a command economy as in the Eastern bloc. Neither will work because in Britain today we no longer have a self-confident ruling class certain of its own mores and able to impose its authority on a docile proletariat. Nor do we have a popular leadership basing its authority on a consensus and mass following that it has inspired. That is the basic reason why both policies will not work. I shall not go further in spelling out the policy that I think would work because that is another theme.
I shall now come down to earth having given, as I see it, a broad vision of the Government's position. I shall quote from my county two specific examples to try to illustrate what is happening at the receiving end, as a consequence of the Government's policy compounding even greater problems beyond our shores. One is a well-known example about bus fares which has had a great deal of publicity. The second example has not yet had the publicity it deserves and concerns the proportion of children who leave school at the age of 16.
Because essentially of Government policy, responsible councillors in Clwyd were obliged to withdraw subsidies to bus fares. Parents were having to pay for their children to travel distances of two and a half miles along main roads without pavements. We had a debate in the House on the matter. The amount involved is about £5 a week—98p a day return fare from one village. One single-parent family with three children going to school has a total income of £74 a week and was obliged to spend £15 to send its children to school. No parent with children at Eton college spends a greater proportion of his or her income than that single-parent family spends to send the children to school in Wrexham.
Since then we have had minor concessions from the county council. Another bus arrangement has come along and fares are lower, but the county council is intending to prosecute 18 parents who, because they feel so deeply aggrieved, refuse to send their children to school. We have had universal free education since 1870. The county council is now in an impossible position. I do not blame the county council; it is at its wits' end. While I welcome the fact that we are to have marinas and hotels, they are not much use right across the whole of Wales.
My second example concerns children leaving school. Some concern is felt among councillors in Clwyd that children at the age of 16 ordinarily would have gone on to further education to take A-levels and then to go on to college. For financial reasons, just as we experienced in the 1920s and 1930s, they are obliged to leave school and claim supplementary benefit. Unfortunately, there are no official statistics and perhaps it would be difficult to obtain statistics, but the county's considered assessment is about eight to 12 pupils per secondary school. There are 34 secondary schools in the county. Therefore, we are talking about 300 to 400 children per annum who leave school simply because of the financial situation facing their families. As far as I know, the same is true elsewhere, and if the figure is multiplied for the whole of Wales, it shows that the Government have led us to yet another disaster.
However, I welcome what I take to be an increasing emphasis on the part of the development agency towards developing a greater entrepreneurial role. Last Monday, the Secretary of State answered one of my questions. I was dismayed to find that the proportion of the agency's total investment in purchasing holdings was on average, over the past three years, 4 per cent. or 5 per cent. in manufacturing industry and about 0·3 per cent. or 0·5 per cent. in the service industries. Now that the Secretary of State has started a new policy, or is reconsidering the policy, I take it that there will be a substantial improvement. For historical reasons there is no, or very little, indigenous capital in Wales. That is one of the big differences between England and Wales. Because of that lack of indigenous capital, it is vital that the agency should undertake a role that would not be quite so crucial if it were the agency for England.
I hope I am wrong to say that the Secretary of State is merely dressing the shop window. I hope that he has the position in Wales much closer to his heart than that. However, with the two examples that I have given—and there are many more that I could give—I have demonstrated to the House the seriousness of the situation that Wales finds itself in in 1983.

Mr. Ian Grist: No doubt other hon. Members know, but I wonder why we are holding a debate on Wales today and not nearer St. David's day. I am probably the only hon. Member not to have spotted the reason. However, as Welsh debates often are, the debate has been interesting, if a little repetitive, as we have learnt each other's styles. Indeed, the hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis) gave us a typical turn out this evening. Parts of his speech sounded like the first draft for the European Federalist, or some other such publication.
Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman made a thoughtful speech, which is much more than can be said for the speech of the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse). It was arrogant, ignorant, shallow and unpleasant. It was shallow, in particular, because it made that very dangerous claim that any action was better than the present action, and whether it succeeded or failed seemed to be immaterial. He will remember the radical proposals and policies put into force by President Mitterrand in France—a man of considerable intellect—which he had to reverse fairly sharply when he found that the laws of mathematics worked in France just as anywhere else.
The hon. Gentleman made a dangerous sort of speech and claimed—as do other Opposition Members—that only

he cared about the disadvantaged, the unemployed and the disabled, and that only he was concerned about the cause of peace and the maintenance of world peace. That is an objectionable attitude, which we utterly reject. For that reason his speech was a disservice to the people of Wales. It painted pictures and smeared smears that do nothing for the people of Wales other than to raise their expectations, only to dash them.
The right hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones) was clearly a little winded by the Secretary of State's opening speech, but he recovered in good style and showed himself to be grudging of the service industries. He showed that he still gave a knee-jerk approval to the manufacturing as opposed to the service industries. He made a snide comment about the growth of imports from other EC countries without, of course, spelling out his party's policy that Britain should leave the Community. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Barry (Sir R. Gower), he implied that he did not understand that modern technology could provide people with telephones in slightly out-of-the-way places, just as they have been provided in the United States of America, Canada and other large countries.
The right hon. Gentleman is obviously worried, like other Opposition Members, about plans for privatising the non-medical aspects of the National Health Service. That plan is supported almost universally by Conservative Members because it would give a better service to patients, break the power of certain trade unions and provide a better return for the taxpayer. That is a considerable benefit all round. One need only consider the strikes that the right hon. Gentleman had to put up with when he was in office, when laundry workers and others did not service the hospitals, to realise the damage that can be done.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made an absolutely smashing speech. As a Member of Parliament for part of Cardiff, how could I say other than that? The granting of the urban development grant for the hotel is a shot in the arm, along with the work that will be carried on towards the south of the city and in Bute town. Although the hotel will be in my constituency, there will obviously be a major effect towards the port side of the city. The hotel will have about 200 beds and will provide work for about 175 full-time staff and many more part-time staff. It will take 18 months to two years to build. It is reckoned that there will be a spin-off of about £1·5 million over and above the direct value of the hotel and the business that it will bring in. It begins to make the St. David's centre a realistic conference venue.
At present we have only about 1,000 hotel beds in Cardiff. We have a 2,000-seat convention centre. We need that hotel to make Cardiff, the capital city of Wales, a true international centre. We are now on course for that. With the recent hotels that have been built and this hotel—as well as the new hotels that we hope for—with our communications, fine roads, railways and the airport, we are now on track. In addition, new industries have been brought in. Further, the Secretary of State mentioned our facilities such as our fine theatres, our opera company, the art galleries and all the other amenities. Cardiff is a fine place to go to and to work in, as well as to attend for conferences.
The spin-off from this development will have a major effect in south Wales. The hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Hughes) will know that, as it is only about 15 minutes


away from Cardiff, the spin-off for Newport will be substantial and its satellite position in relation to Cardiff will begin to work to its benefit.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, our two university colleges, university hospital and polytechnic of Wales, as well as the major institute of higher education and its various colleges in Cardiff, provide a cultural, scientific and technical basis of which we ought to take considerable advantage.
I should be grateful if my hon. Friend in summing up the debate could say something about the ship simulator run by UWIST and the South Glamorgan institute of higher education—a putative bid to become the focus of what one might call a United Nations university of the sea. He may or may not be aware of this particular matter. If he is, I should be interested to hear of it this evening.
We have a third enterprise zone under consideration. I know that the Cardiff council is not particularly keen on this enterprise zone, for reasons which I can only too easily guess. I myself believe that an enterprise zone centred between Cardiff and Newport or in that area would again have an effect in attracting industry and encouraging along that M4 corridor the sort of new firms which we so badly need and which my right hon. Friend has been bringing into Wales with such success.
All this means that we ought to have confidence in what is being done, that at least in Cardiff, in south Wales, along the coastal belt, we ought to be able to say we have a winner, we have growth points, we have the brains, we have the capacity and the facilities. This is an area which we can go out and sell. That is the message we ought to be sending from Wales again and again.
The hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley) mentioned that the S4C and its technical spin-offs were beginning to bring work into his constituency. That is precisely what modern technology can do. That is what freeing British Telecom and all the rest of it is, in the long term, about: it is about providing modern industry in this country rather than buying it in from other countries. We have not just a Welsh gift, but a native British creative impulse in writing, in films, in television and in the creative arts and we ought to be taking advantage of all that. If we could make the electronic goods and then write them, film them and sell them round the world, we would have an integrated unit of which in Wales we would certainly be well placed to take advantage.
Some aspects of publicity we could well do without. I refer to this ridiculous nuclear-free zone programme which the county councils are putting about. My own in south Glamorgan, I regret to say, is spending several thousands of pounds promoting the concept and, in particular, distributing a simply dreadful little leaflet on "South Glamorgan and Nuclear Weapons", a combination I had not readily considered. It says
Why I should read this leaflet",
and tells me that
I will learn what is at stake.
That is one thing that I will not learn if I read it because it makes no mention of the reasons why we must have a defence policy in this country, a policy which has been followed since the war by all parties.
The leaflet refers to the effect of a nuclear weapon being exploded over Cardiff. It does not indicate whose weapon it might be or what the threat is. It gives the

impression that the greatest danger comes from American nuclear weapons, but we all know that that is not really so. Nevertheless, that is the tone of this pamphlet. It asks what its readers can do. It says they can take part in demonstrations. I am sure that the police and the ratepayers who pay for the police will be pleased to hear that the county council is encouraging us to take part in demonstrations and marches.
Nuclear weapons, the pamphlet says, must be dismantled. Is it the business of a county council to interfere in matters which are more properly taken care of by Parliament at national level rather than at local, county level? What business is it of a county council to tell me to contact the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Medical Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons, Scientists Against Nuclear Arms, Women for Life On Earth, whoever they are, and similar bodies? County councils have no business to meddle in matters such as these which they clearly either do not understand or wilfully choose to misrepresent to the public. Their role is to sell the very real advantages of their areas of Wales to the outside world. If they assist in doing that, we will bring in work, we will make our universities places that people want to attend and we will begin to acquire for south Wales the reputation of being a cultural, scientific and technical growth area.
South Wales has factories and ports—ports, incidentally, with shareholder workers enjoying the benefits of denationalisation. I should like to know whether the Labour party intends to take those shares away from the workers. This is where the jobs will be provided. Once we are able to convince people—I suggest that we start with our colleagues in the House—that Wales is not a whingeing country that is always wanting and demanding, but one with something to sell, people will look back at the end of the century and regard these as the last of the bad days in Wales.

Mr. Roy Hughes: Even longer than 10 years ago, but more particularly in the 1975 Common Market referendum campaign the hon. Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) and others were painting a vision of the Common Market in which hundreds of thousands of new jobs would be created—a bonanza in which Wales would be joining. Instead, we have suffered an avalanche of manufactured imported goods. The floodgates have been opened. We are paying for many of those goods with North sea oil revenues. In the process, our own people are being put on the dole. The Common Market itself, as a trading entity, now has an unemployment level of 12 million.
All that the House heard today from the hon. Member for Flint, West was gloom and doom. His remarks show how the hon. Gentleman and many of his colleagues misled the British people. Wales is suffering from unemployment worse than that of the 1930s. At that time its people could move to places like Birmingham. To paraphrase the Secretary of State for Employment, who is well known for his literacy, people could get on their bikes. Now, however, the midlands is becoming an industrial wasteland. Unemployment is engulfing most of the country. Even the south-east of England has an unemployment level of about 10 per cent.
The Government have the levers of power in their hands but prefer to do nothing. The United Kingdom is a wealthy country. It has enormous North sea revenues that no


previous Government in our history have enjoyed. However, to listen to the Prime Minister one would think that the situation was everyone's fault but hers. One day, it is the world crisis. The next, it is the American economy. It can be the trade unions. It can be OPEC. It is never the Iron Lady. After all, she is only the Prime Minister.
The Government fiddle around when the whole economy has almost gone up in flames. They make Nero look like a second-rate performer. As usual, poor little Wales is suffering more than most. We have a dreadful January 1983 unemployment figure of 180,664, an increase of 103,487 since May 1979 and the fateful general election when the Government took over. All the predictions and all the commentators are saying that this figure will go higher, certainly over the 200,000 mark.
If we were to face the tragedy of this Government being re-elected, what would happen to the Welsh coal industry, the steel industry, and, with the Serpell report on the national rail structure, what would happen to the Welsh railways? As I said earlier from a sedentary position, we would be left with our castles—at least they will be a good tourist attraction.
On Monday, during Welsh questions, much of the time was, quite rightly, devoted to the terrible problem of unemployment. I asked about male unemployment in the Newport travel-to-work area and I was told that it was 18·8 per cent., a terrible figure for Newport. I know too, that more job losses are in the pipeline as the steel redundancies, for instance, announced a few months ago, start to take effect. This is happening in Newport, which is virtually the industrial capital of Wales, with such a favourable geographical location on the eastern seaboard, motorway links to the midlands and the south of England, railway networks, an efficient port and a major centre for the steel industry and for a host of leading multinational companies. Yet the Government have brought us to the point where 18·8 per cent. of the male population are unemployed, with more unemployment to come.
I was particularly concerned about my question on the 18·8 per cent. unemployment in the Newport travel-to-work area because the following morning, as I was escorting a party around the House, I was handed a note that told me that the Rogerstone aluminium works was to make a further 350 men redundant. This works employs men only on the shop floor. Surely the Secretary of State must have known beforehand about this development, when answering questions on the previous afternoon.
If the Secretary of State did know about those job losses, why was he not frank with the House? He would have been better thought of if he had been so. In my infancy, I was taught, as many hon. Members must have been, that it is better to speak the truth and shame the devil. What is more, this is not the first time that this has happened. Some months ago we had a similar incident over the redundancies in the steel industry.
If the Secretary of State is claiming that no one had told him beforehand about the redundancies at Alcan, that is incompetence on a fairly monumental scale. He is, after all, the Minister in the Cabinet responsible for Welsh affairs. Surely he is told well in advance about such developments, particularly when 350 jobs are to go in such a vital industry as aluminium. One can conclude that the Secretary of State is displaying either a lack of integrity in failing to be frank with the House, or incompetence in failing to keep himself abreast of what is happening to the

industries of Wales. Either way, the indictment is formidable. On Monday, I called for the resignation of the Secretary of State for Wales. I repeat that request this evening.
The Secretary of State is misleading the people about job creation. The information I give the House was given to me by the leader and chief officers of Newport council. They are all people of the highest possible integrity. They point out that, following the slimline operation at Llanwern, £48 million was allocated by the Welsh Office for the creation of 4,000 new jobs. Currently 210 jobs have been created. I understand that we shall be lucky if 1,000 jobs are created by the end of the year. What a puny contribution that is bearing in mind the fact that Newport has lost about 10,000 jobs. Large sums of money are needed from the Welsh Development Agency and from the Government if our people are to have any chance of working. Massive expansion is needed, commencing in the public sector.
The hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley) said that much needs to be done, be it in housing, hospitals or roads. Llanwern is crying out for investment in Concast. Why not revive the idea of an oil terminal for Llanwern? Now is the time to carry out such projects in a Period of depression when labour is available. Some Conservative Members will say, "How are we going to pay for all this?" When a Labour Government are elected, they will borrow, as does every sensible private enterprise.
According to the Government, the country can afford approximately £10 billion for Trident, a worthless investment if ever there was one. Under Labour's plan, as the economy expands and unemployment falls, spending on benefits will fall and our tax revenues will rise. This in turn will cut borrowing. What has been borrowed will be paid back by the extra wealth produced. That surely must be a better way than paying out £15 billion annually on dole payments. Our principal objective should be that it is better to pay people to do something than to pay them to do nothing.

Dr. Roger Thomas: Although he AS not in the Chamber, I shall follow some of the closing remarks of the hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis). We have heard many disquieting reports about the ability and performance of Welsh 16-year-olds during the past few years. Most countries with which we are and will be in competition when the recession ends are putting far greater effort into planned training and education for that group, and continental countries are far more industry-conscious and industry-based than we are in Wales. The skills and competences learnt at school are not all that easily translated into the work context. Initial work experience must be far better planned and structured in Wales. Demand for engineers and scientific technologists will increase as the demand for semi-skilled and unskilled workers will fall. One asks oneself: is Wales prepared for such changes? Even during a deep depression, jobs are being created, but they are increasingly specialised jobs and the broader the base of the skills and adaptability of young people, so they will be better equipped to keep afloat in a world of immense change.
Thereby hangs a great question over the style and success of present methods. However, we cannot dissociate the education of children aged between 1l and 16 from the education of those aged between 16 and 19.
The Manpower Services Commission has helped to impress upon the powers that be the long-term traumatic effects of youth unemployment, and we have had figures today of the number of people aged below 19 who are unemployed in Wales.
To leave formal education at 16 and to drift aimlessly, as many people in Wales do, is depressing because there is no alternative. It is a cynical, cruel and, for many people, a calamitous age. They must be encouraged to stay on in education and must be offered a blend and combination of skills and interests for a wide range of employment. We have not concentrated enough upon those aspects in Wales, because far too many parents believe that preparation for employment is no education at all. Our traditions die hard, but in that slow death our whole economic outlook is suffering. The present recession has shown a lack of vocational guidance in its stark reality. It is now obvious that increasing youth employment is a major promoter of educational innovation.
In a recently published review of education in Wales, the secretary of the Welsh joint education council commented both widely and wisely. He emphasised the dire needs not so much of the children who need remedial education as of those not considered worthy to sit CSE examinations. That group is disenchanted with school and practically everything related to education and learning. For those children schools have failed to design a relevant curriculum, and they are being unloaded on to the hard and competitive world of work, or, as is more usual these days, the world of no work. They have nothing to show for having gone through the motions of attending school between the ages of 5 and 16. We have heard many times in the House, in another context, of the 13 wasted years. Thousands of boys and girls throughout Wales have experienced 11 wasted years.
The supply of detailed information about schools to parents will not solve the problem for those forgotten regions on whom the minimum of money is spent and who have suffered from the cuts most severely of all. With declining resources in schools, we are in a catch-22 position. We are still suffering from the merger of the grammar schools with the secondary moderns to form comprehensives. Oil and water when shaken forcibly appear to mix, only to separate again when allowed to settle. We know which section floats to the top in all cases, and we know which section the Government encourage to float to the top, possibly with many of them waving their education vouchers.
Despite the Secretary of State's effort to divert our attention to unemployment in West Germany, that country had a long way to go to catch up with Britain, because we had two years' start on the unemployment ladder. Our unemployment rate, whichever figures are used—sets of figures appear to be concocted every other month—has grown at twice the pace of that of the OECD as a whole. Manufacturing output is now fully 20 per cent. below that of 1979 and the slump has left much viable capacity destroyed beyond recovery. Obstructing our rate and capacity of recovery will be skill shortages. Apprenticeships in our industries are fully 40 per cent. below their level at the beginning of the slump. No economic prediction can be found that heralds other than

continuing escalation of those out of work. The predictions only emphasise the persistent obstinacy that refuses to help British industry break loose from the monetarist shackles.
When the recovery comes, our lack of preparation will see us flounder. The West Germans, for example, have had a shorter and less penetrating recession than ours and they will have a platform from which they can again leave us at the starting gate. Our participation in recovery, signs of which are visible in such places as Detroit, will be so slight and ineffective that there will be no cut in those out of work. They are the ones who have suffered above all in the diminution of living standards.
The Government will not accept that those in poverty must be given priority. It is that for which they are crying out. In a Welsh Grand Committee debate exactly two years before the 1979 general election the present Secretary of State stated that small businesses formed a dominant part of the Welsh economy.
That discussion took place against a background of continuing high unemployment, which the right hon. Gentleman said could get worse. One never thought that his powers of foresight and prognostication had reached such a height of accuracy and perception, for matters have most certainly become worse. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider the number of small firms in Wales that have gone to the wall. He described the then Labour Government's economic record over three years as "sombre". Finding an adjective to describe how much blacker and more dejected the present Government's three and a half years' handling of the economy is well nigh impossible.
The right hon. Gentleman described the unemployment figures in his constituency in 1977 as "horrific". They are even more horrific now. For nearly two thirds of the time since 1977 he has been in charge of the Welsh economy. He concentrated upon the construction industry in Wales, which at that time had one sixth of the total work force of 80,000 out of work. In that industry upwards of half the labour force has now been out of work for very lengthy periods. In the 1977 debate the right hon. Gentleman said:
there are still too many advance factories standing empty around Wales of the wrong size, built in the wrong place. They are monuments to the failures of the Government's economic policies.
So the right hon. Gentleman summed up his criticism of the Labour Government's handling of the economy in the spring of 1977. He prophesied his Government's inept attitudes towards Wales with remarkable accuracy. Today Wales suffers in a way that has not been experienced since the 1930s.
I complete my speech by reminding the right hon. Gentleman again of what he said in the 1977 debate. It is relevant that six years later we should be going through a more critical period. He said:
We hold this debate against a background of continuing high unemployment … Our debates on economic affairs during the Government's period in office have provided a sombre story. The picture that we are considering is one of a great sector of the Welsh economy labouring under huge difficulties … Many of those difficulties are due to recession and the general mismanagement of the economy".— [Official Report, Welsh Grand Committee; 25 May 1977, c. 12–19.]
The right hon. Gentleman had that to say about the Labour Government in 1977. That could hardly be improved as an epitaph on the Secretary of State's own stewardship of Wales between May 1979 and February this year.

Mr. Gareth Wardell: A large and increasing number of my constituents in Gower are experiencing a dramatic fall in living standards as a result of involuntary unemployment. A satisfactory measure of that decline was given to me on 25 January by the Minister for Social Security. He said that the unemployment benefit for a single person at the standard rate introduced in November 1982 represented only 17·6 per cent. of the average earnings in Wales. In the same reply, he said that the unemployment benefit for a married couple was only 28·5 per cent. of average earnings in Wales. That is its lowest level since 1951.
During the Government's term of office, unemployment has not simply risen at an unhealthy rate, it has become a chronic disease that has debilitated the morale of working men and women. It has brought a feeling of despair to those people who, through no fault of their own, face the endless misery of life on the dole.
The Secretary of State for Wales has provided me with the most up-to-date figures of long-term unemployment in the Principality. In Wales, 68,364 people have been unemployed for more than one year. That represents a staggering rise of 200 per cent. since October 1979. The number of people in Wales who have not had jobs for more than two years has increased at a rate of 165 per cent. to 30,325.
My constituency lies in the county of west Glamorgan. That county has suffered a faster rise in long-term unemployment than any other county in Wales. Of the age groups for which the Secretary of State provided me with figures, that of people between 25 and 45 is the worst affected. While 1,709 of that age group were classified as long-term unemployed in October 1979, the latest figure stands at 6,364. After two years on the dole, harsh discriminatory treatment awaits them, as only to the long-term unemployed is accorded the unenviable stigma of ineligibility for the higher long-term rate of supplementary benefit.
I shall resist the temptation to analyse the theoretical aridity of pursuing national economic policies that depend on the unstable relationship between the quantity theory of money that has been resurrected since the days of Irving Fisher in the early 1920s, the abolition of exchange control and unfair foreign competition. Instead, I shall use two practical examples from my own constituency to highlight where the Secretary of State for Wales must defend his corner and that of Welsh interests in the Cabinet.
The first example is that of Teddington Bellows of Pontarddulais. Eighteen months ago, that company was vying with Paul Wurth of Luxembourg for a replacement order for tuyere stocks for the blast furnaces at the British Steel Corporation plant at Scunthorpe. Paul Wurth won the order because it was cheaper, but whereas Teddington Bellows would have used British steel, Paul Wurth used French steel. As a result, potential and hoped-for expansion was stifled at Teddington Bellows, followed by redundancies and a four-day week.
My second example is even more immediate. On Friday last week, redundancies were announced at IMI Titanium, including its Waunarlwydd plant. Although the plant is just inside the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), many of my constituents work in it. The CEGB has inflicted a terrible blow on the morale of my constituency. It has placed a

very significant order for 120 tons of titanium condenser welded tube for the Dungeness nuclear power station with an American competitor. IMI Titanium was given no opportunity to requote.
That is a classic example of a high technology British industry, a leader in its field and able to compete with any titanium producer in the world, being forced into a desperate struggle for survival due to unfair competition. Our American friends impose a 17 per cent. ad valorem tariff on British titanium products entering the United States and an absolute ban on the use of British titanium for United States defence contracts. If the United States operates such blatantly unfair trading practices, why should a British company he dealt such a hammer blow by a publicly owned British industry? Why do the Government stand idly by? Is the price saving to the CEGB greater than the cost of keeping 400 men and their families on the dole?
I hope that the Secretary of State has learnt from the experience of Teddington Bellows. The people of Gower now expect action from him to avoid unnecessary loss of employment opportunities at IMI Titanium.

Mr. Ray Powell: It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell), who is making a very favourable impression in the House and is working extremely hard on behalf of his constituents.
The Secretary of State for Wales is considered in the Cabinet as the Cinderella, the Prime Minister's lackey, the Shonny Bo Ochr at the Welsh Office. What is his excuse for the massive unemployment in Wales? What Jo all his fine words about caring and sharing and concern for the workless really mean? Does he propose any cure for this cancer? Has he any immediate suggestions, if not to cure, at least to curtail, the rising number of closures, redundancies and bankruptcies, of which there are so many in my constituency and throughout Wales? Nowadays we are told not weekly but daily of further redundancies and closures.
During an intervention I referred to the closure of a factory known as Brush Power at Bridgend, where 300 people will be made redundant. It is part of the Hawker Siddeley group. What efforts has the Secretary of State made to save that factory?
The right hon. Gentleman's speech was insulting, to say the least, to the people of Wales and to those who have been thrown out of work by this heartless, helpless and hopeless bunch of hypocrites. High unemployment has been deliberately contrived by the most provocative performer of personal pomposity in history—the grocer's daughter herself. That woman is determined to crush the trade union movement and workers of this country; to subject them to such degradation and defeat that they will be for ever subservient to her and the state.
On Monday, during Welsh Questions, the Secretary of State was accused by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones) of misleading the House. In his customary curt way the Secretary of State told my right hon. Friend to read the Official Report, where he would see that he had not misled the House. I read and re-read the Official Report and the Secretary of State did mislead the House. He used the words


just as employment deteriorated during the period of office of the Labour Government."—[Official Report, 7 February 1983; Vol. 36, c. 618.]
The matter must be put straight and the Secretary of State must apologise. The number of people employed increased under the Labour Government from 1974 to 1979. How can he say that employment deteriorated? Will he retract that and apologise for misleading the House?
For far too long we have had this indifference from this Shonny. For far too long he has treated the House with contempt. It worries me a little that the Secretary of State was once a Lloyd's man, with all the wealth that that implies behind him. He is contemptuously indifferent to those for whom he is primarily responsible. He has deliberately thrown thousands of our people out of work. He talks hypocritically about his concern for them. The only concern he feels is that there are not enough of them. His task is to please the headmistress and put more people on the dole, whether in his constituency or in mine.
We have reached breaking point. Workers in the water industry, with a strike-free record for 50 years, have felt compelled to take action to protect themselves from this bunch of hooligans, these muggers, these contemptible, hypocritical, class-conscious louts. The gas and electricity workers are raising their heads in indignation. We shall see whether they will be given the same treatment as was forcibly thrust down the throats of the Health Service workers. The pollsters should canvass them for a better and more factual picture.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Powell: I do not have much time, but I shall do so.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: We shall not be replying to the hon. Gentleman's points in detail because they are totally worthless and not worth replying to.

Mr. Powell: I am sorry that I gave way to the hon. Gentleman. He does not listen to reason.
It is time that the pollsters asked the 4 million people who are out of work where their crosses will go when the Prime Minister runs to the country before time. They should ask the trade union movement, the Health Service workers, the thousands of ASLEF and other railway workers, the thousands of ambulance men, the fire brigade workers, the workers in the shipyards, the steel industry workers, the miners, the hundreds and thousands of people in local government whom the Prime Minister has put out of work, the civil servants and the Inland Revenue staffs where their crosses will go.
Ask the old-age pensioners about their clawback in November. How will they vote at the next election? Ask the sick, the disabled and the socially deprived. Ask the 6½ million people who are living below the poverty line. Ask the hundreds of thousands of homeless and those who have lost their businesses or jobs because of the Government. Do this lot really believe that the polls are true? Of course they do not. However, they like to see them in the press.
At 3.19 am on Tuesday morning I initiated a debate on the effects of Government policy on the nationalised industries in Wales. I referred to the consequences of the demanning in the steel industry and the inevitable rundown

of coal and other supporting industries, which resulted in the tremendous problem of unemployment. However, it was not only the Government's action that was the cause. It resulted also from the doubling of VAT, the increased bank rate and the slaughter of local government services with the consequential repercussions of higher mortgages, taxes, interest rates, rents and rates and fewer services for the old, sick and disabled. We know the extent of the monetarist policies. We know the unemployment figures. However, do we understand the suffering, indignity, frustration and impoverishment that unemployment creates? We bandy the figures about week after week and month after month. Why is it not possible to help those people? Why cannot we give them hope today? What had the Secretary of State to offer them in his speech?
I say to the House and the nation that whether it be in the Principality of Wales, the highlands or lowlands of Scotland, or in the rest of the United Kingdom, my party, ably led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot), assisted by men of proven ability, will take us out of this abyss and give back the hopes and aspirations of the people. The degradation, demoralisation and total despair, coupled with human misery and suffering, will soon be abolished when a Labour Government are elected after the next election. We are pledged to bring back jobs, stop the decay and poverty creeping back into our towns and cities, and give back hope to the young who are sickened with life on the dole. We shall win because the nation is waning under this merciless mob and crying out for a change to a caring, sharing society. That is what we shall give the people.

Mr. Donald Coleman: The Secretary of State began the debate with a remarkable speech, in unusual form for him. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Dr. Thomas) in his professional capacity would have diagnosed for us the presence in the Chamber of the bacillus which is the cause of election fever. We had a remarkable catalogue from the Secretary of State. Of course, we can join him in saying that there is a need to clear away the dereliction of the past and to create the means of increasing economic activity in Wales.
We are glad that on this occasion the right hon. Gentleman paid compliments to others who have held his high office. We are glad that he did not try this afternoon to claim all the credit for himself for the various programmes—roads, health, housing and factory building. We are glad that he acknowledged the activities of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) in the building of advance factories. We were glad to hear this catalogue from him. We were pleased, too, to hear his announcement about hotel developments in Swansea and Cardiff. I agree with him and others who have spoken about the importance of the development of tourism in Wales as a means of providing employment. Listening to what he said about those two cities, I thought that we were hearing a modern version of "A Tale of Two Cities".
This debate has followed the usual pattern of Welsh debates on a motion for the Adjournment of the House, in that we have ranged widely. That is not a bad thing, because it has given us the opportunity to raise a variety of matters, some local and some national, which are the concern of the people of Wales.
However, the topic that has undoubtedly dominated the debate has been the massive unemployment that is being experienced in Wales. It has featured in almost all the speeches that have been made, particularly from these Benches. Last month, with a figure of 180,664 people unemployed—a percentage of 17·5 per cent. —in Wales, according to last Friday's report in The Daily Telegraph —a paper not unknown for its support for the Tory party—was the 38th successive month in which there was an increase in the number of people becoming unemployed in the United Kingdom.
The right hon. Gentleman cannot escape from the answer that he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans) at Question Time on Monday, which showed that when he assumed his responsibilities in May 1979, the number of unemployed claimants—a new Tory parlance to describe people thrown out of work—was 77,177 people, or 7 per cent. of the working population of Wales. The latest figures are a tragic underlining of the failure of the Conservative party and the policies that it pursues. Until that party is removed from power and its policies thrown out, this tragic upward trend will continue.
The report in Monday's Western Mail, under the headline
Bleak Outlook Forecast On Welsh Jobless",
supports this contention, when it says that unemployment in Wales could hit the 200,000 mark by the end of this year—a situation that several experts have predicted. One of the predictions, that of Data Resources International, says that there could be 3,500,000 adults in the United Kingdom unemployed by the end of 1983. Taking the Welsh experience, that could mean about 215,000 unemployed in Wales. The best prediction of the experts, Simon and Coates Stockbrokers, is that there will be 187,000 people unemployed in Wales by the end of the year. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones) referred to the election address of the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts) in which he said:
Every Conservative Government since the war has left office with more people at work than when it started.
When the Government depart from office at the next election that situation will not obtain.
However one looks at the unemployment figures, either as an optimist or as a pessimist, they mean hardship in Wales, at a level for which in the fulness of time the Minister and his party will be answerable to the Welsh electorate. The inescapable fact of unemployment in Wales is that 36 unemployed people are chasing every job. For our young people the prospect of a proper job grows dimmer as each succeeding month's unemployment figures are published.
The Secretary of State seeks comfort in the programme of special measures but they do not provide proper jobs and he should not try to represent them as such when he is called to account for unemployment in Wales.
I want to dwell for a moment on one of the special measures which impressed me greatly when I had the opportunity to see the scheme in operation for myself. It is a scheme which is being run jointly by the Ford Motor Company and the Manpower Services Commission at the Ford works in my constituency. I commend those hon. Members who wish to see the worthwhile functioning of one of those schemes to pay a visit to that scheme in the Ford works.
I was greatly impressed with the quality of the training being given and the response of the young people to the opportunity. It is a credit to the Ford Motor Company and to the MSC. It is not just a scheme which pays lip service to the training of young people—as, I regret, some have done in the past. Neither is it a means whereby a company such as Fords can get work done on the cheap. Any work done is done at proper commercial rates which are properly costed as part of the training which is being given.
The young people are responding well to the scheme but I could not help feeling the regret of all those involved in the scheme that it could provide work for only 12 months in their lives. After that they were back to the uncertainty of life in the shadows of Britain's massive dole queue.
During questions on Welsh affairs on Monday my right hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda drew attention, as he did again today, to the discrepancies between the figures for job creation given by the Welsh Development Agency and those given on the recent HTV programme. He also drew attention to the regrettable refusal of the Welsh Development Agency to take part in that programme.
On Monday my right hon. Friend called for the publication of a leaflet giving the facts so that we can judge the matter. I noted the reply of the Secretary of State on Monday and the exchanges today, but I raise it again in this debate because I believe that, on both sides of the House, we would wish to ensure that confusion does not arise which is not in the best interests of those who suffer unemployment or who are to embark upon what we hope will be their working lives.
One of the brighter aspects of job creation in Wales has been the success of Japanese investment. During our recent visit to Japan my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mr. Jones) and I lost no opportunity to emphasise the success of these ventures both to Wales and the Japanese investors. We pointed to the excellent industrial relations obtaining in these factories, using this as evidence to counter the belief in Japan that most of our workers are out on strike most of the time.
We would welcome greater Japanese investment in Britain, especially in Wales, and from our experience in Wales we can express confidence that it will prosper and succeed. Bearing in mind what I have said about the sensitivity of the Japanese about industrial relations, I urge the Secretary of State and Conservative Members to curb the union bashing of the Secretary of State for Industry, whose uncouth utterances on this subject seriously put at risk possible inward investment from Japan which others are striving to achieve. I hope that they will take this on board because it is being said over and over again. When the Secretary of State for Industry gives credence to it, it is all the more difficult to destroy.
I now turn to a matter which, if implemented in any form, would have serious consequences for Wales—the Serpell report, to which reference has been made during the debate. In the debate on the report last week, the Secretary of State for Transport said that the extreme option was a non-runner. But it is not only option A, which would remove a railway system entirely from Wales, that is objectionable to us. Other options put forward in the report would leave Wales in a disadvantaged position and that makes us suspicious about the Government's mind on the future of the railways in Wales.
I have seen the Serpell report described as a Government-inspired hatchet job, which must be taken seriously, as it provides the basis for a post-election attack on public transport, should the British people make such a grievous mistake as inflicting upon themselves a further dose of Thatcherism after the next election. The Government are killing the railways slowly but surely, by starving them of the investment which is so badly needed for track renewal, new rolling stock and electrification. That is seen no more clearly than in Wales. Unless this trend is halted, the Government will be well on the way to implementing the Serpell report.
The Serpell report at best calls for £220 million of cuts. Wales is bound to come badly out of such a programme, for not only would there be cuts in passenger traffic, but freight services would be cut in a way which would make Wales unattractive to new industrial development and would seriously hamper existing industrial activity—for instance, the movement of coal and steel and the removal of dangerous substances whose transfer by road would place the public in danger and cause unacceptable environmental pollution.
Labour party policy would be one of expansion of the railway service because we would mainly implement, "Rail Policy", which calls for an annual investment of £567 million. We would press ahead with main line electrification, with the provision of new rolling stock, and with providing light-weight trains for rural services. Under our plans, there would be an expansion of freight services, track renewal and new signalling. Those plans would include Wales and create in Wales the opposite of the transport desert that would result from the implementation of any part of the Serpell report, which would be the worst disaster for the railways in this country since Beeching, which was also commissioned by a Conservative Government.
The coal industry will always be vital to Wales. My right hon. and hon. Friends have made sure that the industry has not been neglected in our considerations today. No one in the industry—neither the National Coal Board nor the National Union of Mineworkers—denies that the industry has problems. There is a resolve among those involved to ensure that the problems are overcome to the benefit of the industry, those who gain their livelihood from it and the communities that are dependent upon it. They could do with a bit more help from the Government in their efforts to overcome the problems.
Over the years, co-operation between the NCB and the union has re-shaped the industry and that co-operation will bring about the future prosperity of the industry and the successful operation of the coalfields. It is that which will bring prosperity and not the threat of bringing in people to play the role of hatchet men, who will apply closures and cuts to achieve financial viability. Coal plays, and will continue to play, a vital role in our energy sources. The south Wales coalfield, with its fine quality coals, has an important part to play.
In a short time the supplies of natural gas upon which we now rely will run out. We shall have to resort, once again, to coal as a source of gas. The Margam project must be considered at this point. The location is adjacent to the gas council's site at Jersey Marine, where a gasification plant is most likely to be established, as it is already connected to the gas grid. If the Government are serious

about the provision of Britain's future energy resources, they should now be entering into consultations with the NCB to bring the Margam development onstream when the gas industry will require its products. They have no right to leave that to those who will come after them.
I agree with the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells) about the importance of agriculture in Wales. We in the Labour party, with our record on agriculture, accept—as we have proved in the past—that a prosperous agriculture is vital for Britain and for Wales. While farmers will concede that 1982 was a better year for them than 1981, they remain plagued by the heavy bank borrowings that they have incurred in the past three years. They are anxious to know when the problems of marginal land will be recognised and when the hill livestock sector is to obtain its fair reward. They are concerned that the co-responsibility payments will discriminate against them, to the benefit of the small continental producers. I support the welcome that they give to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food taking steps against the import of UHT milk, and in any further steps he takes to preserve our door-to-door milk deliveries.
What I cannot understand, however, is how it is perfectly proper to introduce import controls on milk while opposing them on other agricultural products such as steel.
It gives Opposition Members no pleasure to record that Wales has been particularly hard hit by the policies pursued by the Conservative Government since 1979. The Wales we see today is not the one forecast for us in the blue booklet containing the Tory manifesto for Wales in 1979. Unemployment has not been halted in line with the impression given in that document. It was 7 per cent. then; it is now 17·5 per cent. The steel industry in Wales is a shadow of what it was in that year. Not only do small businesses, which featured so much in that manifesto, not prosper as a forecast: many no longer exist. When the next edition of that glossy blue publication appears, it will make more promises, as we have heard today, to the Welsh people but, like the current set of policies, they will not be met.
Wales has never been the home of Toryism. In 1979 some people thought that their programme showed a movement away from their old habits but experience is more valuable than thought when coming to a judgment. The experience of Wales since 1979 will bring about a judgment which will reject the Tory Party, not only at the next election but for a very long time to come.

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Michael Roberts): The hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Coleman) and the right hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Jones) both referred to the television programme which suggested that 40 per cent. of WDA factory space was vacant. I hope that I can shed some light on this matter if they will bear with me while I explain the correct figures.
The WDA now has about 3 million sq ft of factory space available for letting. This does not, of course, include factories which are empty but which have already been leased or which have been reserved for new tenants.
The figure represents the space which the WDA is now able to offer for occupation by prospective new tenants. Hon. Members will agree that this is reasonable; the 3 million sq ft of space has to be measured against the total WDA factory stock of about 20 million sq ft, or 15 per cent. —the percentage which my right hon. Friend


mentioned in the House on Monday. My right hon. Friend also mentioned the amount of factory space built by the WDA since it came into being—the very commendable figure of 8 million sq ft.
The hon. Member for Neath referred to his desire to see Japanese industry coining into Wales in particular. I wonder whether the hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Hughes) will explain how much of that industry he expects to see coming into Wales with all the inducements that he and some of his hon. Friends might offer if Britain, including Wales, is outside the Common Market. If he does not wish to give that explanation, perhaps the hon. Gentleman—

Sitting suspended.

On resuming—

ADJOURNMENT

Resolved, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. David Hunt.]

Adjourned accordingly at three minutes to Ten o' clock.